


The Runaway Bunny

by robindrake93



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Annabeth Chase Is Her Own Warning, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Deception, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lies, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Monsters, POV First Person, Psychological Trauma, Scents & Smells, Sign Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 29,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robindrake93/pseuds/robindrake93
Summary: Percy knows that Chiron, Grover, and the rest of Yancy Academy are lying to him about the incident in the museum when Percy killed his math teacher...but he can't prove it. The nightmares won't leave him alone, he's failing sixth grade, and even the weather seems to be out to get him. Percy learns the hard way not to trust anyone.Luke is trying to balance his life at Camp Half-Blood with what Kronos wants him to do. He's got a lot of responsibilities and his latest one goes by the name of Percy Jackson. Percy is the half-mad son of Poseidon and Luke is dismayed to find that he cares about Percy deeply. Before he knows it, everything comes crashing down around Luke.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 81





	1. Once There Was A Little Bunny Who Wanted To Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> i. this was inspired by the idea that Grover and Chiron lied to Percy for months instead of a few weeks and a few other things. ~~There was going to be more, a whole series exploring how this would affect Percy, but I'm not sure I want to write it anymore. Comment and let me know if this is something you're interested in me continuing.~~ I've decided to write the rest of it. Tags and rating have been updated.
> 
> ii. Yes, the title is based off of the children's story _The Runaway Bunny_.
> 
> iii. some of this is ripped word-for-word from The Lightning Thief. Just so you know. 
> 
> iv. don't reupload/repost my fics.

I could start at any point in my short, miserable life to prove that I’m a troubled kid, but things really started going bad last January, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan - twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff. 

I know - it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were. 

But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip so I had hopes. 

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn’t think he’d be cool, but he told us stories and joked and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn’t put me to sleep. 

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn’t get in trouble. 

Boy, was I wrong. 

The field trip had been going okay, all things considered. Then it was lunch time. Me and my friend Grover were sitting on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn’t know we were from that school - the school for loser freaks who couldn’t make it elsewhere. 

Grover was my only friend at school and he was a prime target for bullying. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must’ve been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don’t let that fool you. You should’ve seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. 

Anyway, we were eating our lunch away from the others. 

“Detention?” Grover asked. 

“Nah,” I said. “Not from Brunner. I just wish he’d lay off me sometimes. I mean - I’m not a genius.” 

Grover didn’t say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to impart some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “Can I have your apple?” 

I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. 

Sometimes I wonder, if I’d still been holding that apple, would things have gone differently? Would I have lobbed it at Nancy Bobofit’s head when she came over to bully us instead of doing what I did? I won’t ever know. What I do know is that I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. 

The next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, “Percy pushed me!” 

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. She was a little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. 

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new t-shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I’d done something she’d been waiting for all semester. “Now, honey -” 

“I know,” I grumbled. “A month erasing workbooks.” 

That wasn’t the right thing to say. 

“Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said. 

“Wait!” Grover yelped. “It was me! _I_ pushed her.” 

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. 

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. 

“I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she said. 

With those words, my fate was sealed. Nothing could stop what was about to happen. Looking back, I wish that I had put up more of a fight. Or Grover had put up more of a fight. Or Mr. Brunner had stepped in. But in the end, I followed Mrs. Dodds into the museum. When I caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. 

Except for us, the gallery was empty. 

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. 

Even without the noise, I would’ve been nervous. It’s weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. “You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said. 

I did the safe thing. I said, “Yes, ma’am.” 

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “Did you really think you would get away with it?” The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. 

She’s a teacher, I thought nervously. It’s not like she’s going to hurt me. 

I was so wrong. 

I said, “I’ll - I’ll try harder, ma’am.” 

Thunder shook the building. 

“We are not fools, Percy Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said. “It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.” She didn’t wait long for me to puzzle out what she was talking about. “Your time is up,” she hissed. Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouthful of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. 

Then things got even stranger. 

Mr. Brunner, who’d been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. “What ho, Percy!” he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. 

Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. 

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn’t a pen anymore. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner’s bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. 

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. 

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. 

She snarled, “Die, honey!” And she flew straight at me. 

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. 

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. _Hisss!_ Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into a yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me. 

I was alone. 

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. 

Mr. Brunner wasn’t there. Nobody was there but me. 

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must’ve been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. 

Had I imagined the whole thing? 

I went back outside. 

It had started to rain. 

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.” 

I said, “Who?” 

“Our _teacher._ Duh!” 

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. 

She just rolled her eyes and turned away. 

I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. 

He said, “Who?” 

“Not funny, man,” I told him. “This is serious.” 

Thunder boomed overhead. 

I saw Mr. Brunner, sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved. 

I went over to him. 

He looked up, a little distracted. “Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.” 

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it. “Sir,” I said, “Where’s Mrs. Dodds?” 

He stared at me blankly. “Who?” 

“The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher.” 

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. “Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?” 

We went back inside to finish our museum tour but my mind was reeling and I couldn’t focus on what Mr. Brunner was saying. My legs still felt like jello, as though they were going to give out beneath me, and I spent most of the field trip finding benches to sit on or leaning against walls. I couldn’t get the scene out of my head. Every time I thought of Mrs. Dodds’ leather jacket turning into wings, my heart raced. 

The day went by in a blur and before I knew it, we were getting back on the bus to go back to the school. 

Just before the bus doors closed, a blonde woman got on our bus. She was young and she sat down at the front of the bus with Mr. Brunner. 

“Who is that?” I asked Grover. 

“That’s Mrs. Kerr,” Grover said. 

I’d never seen this woman in my life. 

When we got back to school, we had dinner and then were sent to the showers. I tried dropping Mrs. Dodds references but people stared at me like I was psycho. After showers, we were given time to catch up on homework before bed. I sat in my room, staring uncomprehendingly at my schoolwork. 

Being alone in my room was creeping me out. It was unusually cold. 

I stared unfocused at my homework, my brain swimming with the events of the day. Then I realized that Mrs. Dodds had given me homework! She’d given me assignments that _she wrote on_. I scrambled for them, sifting through unorganized papers from the whole school year. Chemistry, World History, Latin, English, Pre-Algebra! I lifted the paper and my heart sank. 

I couldn’t read a word of it. It was nothing but red scribbles across the page. Was I having a stroke? Did Gabe finally hit me so hard that I lost my ability to read? I put my head in my hands and cried.  
  
  
  


It took me a week to work up the courage to get real answers. I went to talk to Mrs. Kerr before class. She sat at her desk grading papers. Her blonde hair was wrapped in a bun on top of her head, held in place by a pretty silver bun shaper. “Hello, Percy,” she greeted me cheerfully. The extra large cup of coffee might have had something to do with her perkiness. “What can I help you with?” 

My hands had begun to sweat. I hadn’t been alone with a teacher since Mrs. Dodds in the museum. “I, um, was having trouble with my notes. Could you explain?” I handed her the piece of paper, mildly horrified that it was wrinkled and damp. 

Mrs. Kerr took the paper from me and looked it over. “This is from two months ago, Percy,” she said finally. “But I’m glad that you’ve decided you can come to me for help. Pull up a chair, and I’ll go over the material with you.” 

I didn’t see a way out of it without bringing up Mrs. Dodds again so I dragged a chair to her desk and sat down. As Mrs. Kerr patiently explained the work, my focus was elsewhere. I looked at the papers on her desk. I could read what they said, I could read her handwriting. I looked back at my old assignment. It was still just squiggles on the page. What on earth was going on here? 

When Mrs. Kerr was through and I had assured her that I understood, I went back to my dorm room. I sat down on the floor and sorted through my papers. Every single paper with Mrs. Dodds’ handwriting on it was an illegible blur. My hands shook. I wanted to cry. What was happening? 

I grabbed several of them and hunted down Grover. He was my only friend here...even if it didn’t feel like it lately. Even if I thought he was lying to me. I hated to think badly of Grover but it felt like everyone was playing an elaborate prank on me. The prank wasn’t funny. 

Grover was outside, sitting beneath a pine tree. Finding him was always easy because he spent as much time outside as possible. He had a set of reed pipes that I had never seen before. It sounded like he was playing Hilary Duff. “I like it way out here away from the city,” Grover said as I approached. “Pollution makes me sick.” 

“It makes everyone sick,” I said. I didn’t sit next to him. Instead, I thrust the papers at him. “What do these say?” 

Confusion crossed Grover’s face. He took the papers and looked them over. “This is just the algebra homework that Mrs. Kerr gave us last semester.” 

I wanted to pull my hair out. I wanted to scream. I snatched the papers out of his hand and turned to go back into the school. 

“Percy! Where are you going!?” 

“To find someone who isn’t lying to me!” I shouted over my shoulder. Rage propelled me into the building and I found the Latin classroom blind. There was only one other person who would believe me. I took the papers to Mr. Brunner. I slapped them on his desk and didn’t care that it was rude. “Why can’t I read these? Everyone else can read them but I can’t. It’s just math homework…” I hesitated, then said, “It’s just Mrs. Dodd’s handwriting. Why can’t I read it?!” My voice had risen. 

Mr. Brunner recovered quickly from his surprise. His hands were beneath the table. I heard an echoing snap. “Perhaps you should take another look, Percy.” 

I looked because he asked me to. It was Mrs. Kerr’s handwriting. I could read every word. Cold sweat trickled down my spine. “I-I don’t understand…” My head spun. I blinked hard but the papers remained legible. 

“Perhaps you should head to the cafeteria and get a snack. An empty stomach can sometimes play tricks on the mind.” Mr. Brunner sounded sincere and sure of himself. He gazed at me imploringly with his brown eyes. 

“Y-yeah,” I said. “I’m probably just...hungry.” I gathered the papers and left his classroom.  
  
  
  


I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr had been our pre-algebra teacher since last semester. Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. 

Well, that wasn’t the only reason that everyone else was avoiding me. At night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leather wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. Every time I looked over my shoulder, I thought I saw a glimpse of those red eyes watching me. Sometimes when it got really quiet, I could still hear the slash of talons close to my ear or the rustle of leathery wings. 

I slept through Mr. Brunner’s Latin class. It was normally the most interesting class but all it did was remind me of killing Mrs. Dodds. I _killed_ someone. It wasn’t like I was some pure baby angel. I’d thought of killing people before but it was always in the abstract sort of way. I could still remember what it felt like when the sword slashed through her body. 

The nightmares left me feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs and it wasn’t just Latin. Teachers started to ask if I was doing okay and if everything was alright at home. They were charitable until I started getting into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. 

Then I began to have talks with the headmaster. They were threats disguised as concern. After the dozenth time this happened and he asked me why I was being so lazy, I snapped. I called him an old sod. I wasn’t even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. 

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. 

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.  
  
  
  


I tried to study for my finals. I really did. But I couldn’t summon the motivation to do it. Every time I looked at my text books, I remembered that everyone was playing an elaborate prank on me. That or I really was going insane like they whispered in the hallways. 

The thing was, I was starting to believe them. I’d had a crazy hallucination that lasted for literal months and it ended in...dust? That was the weird thing, how Mrs. Dodds had just disintegrated into yellow dust. If there had been blood, I don’t think I would have been able to handle it. As it was, I was barely keeping my cool. 

Nancy Bobofit and her friends had a field day with my temporary bout of insanity. They just wouldn't let it go, kept needling me and making jokes. Sometimes they pretended like they remembered Mrs. Dodds but it was only to laugh at me when I got my hopes up. 

Every time I looked to Grover for backup, he just shook his head. “We never had a teacher called Mrs. Dodds.” He looked sad these days, as if seeing me go crazy was really bumming him out.  
  
  
  


I sat in the library staring blankly at a book, contemplating my existence. 

A girl walked up to me. She was a doey little girl, no bigger than a nine-year-old despite being twelve. Her small stature and quiet nature made her a prime target for Nancy Bobofit’s gang...or would have if I didn’t have Nancy’s undivided attention. I felt bad that I couldn’t remember her name. She shuffled her feet and wrung her hands together. “Percy...I remember Mrs. Dodds.” 

I couldn’t believe it. The hope that I wasn’t crazy made me leap out of my seat. “Really?!” 

The librarian shushed me and fixated a glare at me. Was she a monster or were all librarians like that? 

I sank back into my seat, nervous and restless. 

I’d scared Doe in my hope. She stared at me like she was questioning her own sanity. “Um, yeah. She was so mean and we called her the Devil because she’s from Georgia.” 

I nodded agreement. Finally someone remembered. “Like the song.” 

Doe nodded. 

Relief flooded me so quickly and strongly that I sank back into my seat. Finally there was someone who remembered. I wasn’t crazy. Mrs. Dodds was real. Which meant that I really killed her. Did I have a psychotic episode or did Mrs. Dodds really turn into a demon? Did someone drug me so that I was seeing things that weren’t there? 

Doe became my new best friend. She knew the inside jokes, the unbearable way Mrs. Dodds treated Nancy Bobofit like an angel. It felt good to have someone on my side. 

But I had to come to terms with having killed someone. Doe knew Mrs. Dodds as a teacher but she didn’t know anything about Mrs. Dodds turning into a demon. That was still only my hallucination. 

I went back and forth wondering if I’d really killed her. I could still vividly remember the feeling of the sword cutting her flesh. But if I killed her, why wasn’t there blood? Where did her body go? She _had_ to be a demon because there was no other explanation. Someone would have come to arrest me if I killed a normal human. 

It all came crashing down around me a whole week later when it was revealed to be a hoax. At an assembly, Doe turned on me and I found out that she’d been making it all up. She didn’t remember Mrs. Dodds; all her information had been gleaned from what I’d said to other students. 

It took all my willpower not to punch her...and to hold in my tears. I hid in my room and cried. Why were people so cruel? I was never going to trust anyone ever again. Not ever. They were all cruel and liars.  
  
  
  


The freak weather continued, which didn’t help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows on my dorm room. I’d screamed, thinking it was Mrs. Dodds coming to attack me again. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. 

Not to mention the rain. It rained every single day from January to May. During the first two months, it was more sleet than pure rain but even after the air warmed up, the rain that fell was like cold needles. Normally, I liked going outside but I thought I saw red eyes watching me from the treeline and on one memorable occasion, I was nearly struck by lightning. It hit the ground close enough to me that my hair stood on end. 

After that, I stayed indoors. It was really paranoid but I could have sworn the weather was after me in particular. Whenever I went outside, it seemed like the weather got worse. Even looking out windows felt too dangerous. I was scared of seeing Mrs. Dodds outside my window and I was becoming increasingly worried about getting struck by lightning. One day, I tacked my bedsheet over my window, if only to give myself some peace of mind. It was a child’s remedy - like hiding under the covers so that the monster couldn’t see you - but it really did work. I felt a little better now that no one could see into my room.  
  
  
  


Finals came and went. I knew that I failed them but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I didn’t even care that I was letting mom down, or that Gabe would see this as an excuse to hit me and call me names. After I finished the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. 

For a moment I was hopeful that he would send me some sign that I hadn’t completely lost my mind, but that didn’t seem to be the case. 

“Percy,” he said. “Don’t be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It’s...for the best.” His tone was kind but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. 

I mumbled, “Okay, sir.” 

“I mean…” Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn’t sure what to say. “This isn’t the right place for you. It was only a matter of time.” 

My eyes stung. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn’t handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out. 

“Right,” I said, trembling. 

“No, no,” Mr. Brunner said. “Oh confound it all. What I’m trying to say...you’re not normal, Percy. That’s nothing to be -” 

Mr. Brunner thought that I was insane. He thought there was something wrong with me. It felt like a knife in my chest. “Thanks,” I blurted. “Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.” 

“Percy -” 

But I was already gone. 

I ran straight to the bathroom. I know, it was a cliché to cry in the school bathrooms. But my dorm room was too far away to reach in time and I didn’t want anyone to see me crying. 

Which meant, of course, that someone walked into the bathroom about three minutes after I did. He was a huge boy, stupid and mean like a bull. He saw my tear-streaked face and immediately laughed. “What’s wrong, Jackson? You miss Mrs. Dodds?” It didn’t come as a surprise. This boy was one of the many who teased Grover. I could have been friends with them if I wasn’t willing to stick up for Grover. And if I hadn’t hallucinated a whole person. 

I already felt flayed open. This was my worst year yet. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. Even the weather was against me. “Leave me alone,” I said quietly, staring down at the sink. I kept him in my peripherals, wary. 

The boy insinuated something about me and Mrs. Dodds that I didn’t fully understand but it made nausea and anger and shame burn within me. My vision blacked. The next thing I knew, the bathroom was wet and the boy was on the floor groaning. 

Did...did I push him? I couldn’t remember. I swiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my wrist and ran out of the bathroom. If the headmaster hadn’t already kicked me out of Yancy, he definitely would when the boy told him that I’d attacked him. I ran back to my dorm, not caring who saw me now. When I reached my room, I pushed the door shut and hid in the closet. 

The closet wasn’t very big but I was small enough to fit with the door closed if I tucked my knees up to my chest. My whole body trembled and I cried into my hands.  
  
  
  


On the last day of term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. 

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich_ juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives or ambassadors or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies. 

They didn’t ask me what I was going to be doing. No one had spoken to me since the finals. Well, no one except Grover. He’d come to my room only to tell me that “You look awful. Is everything okay?” 

I didn’t answer him then and we hadn’t spoken since. 

If anyone had asked, I would have told them I was going back to the city. What I wouldn’t tell them was that I’d have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I’d go to school in the fall. They spoke around me as if I’d never existed. 

It turned out that Grover also had a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as me. So there we were, together again, heading into the city. Grover sat beside me, glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he’d always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I’d always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. 

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I said, “What are you doing?” 

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. “Wha-what do you mean?” 

“We’ve barely spoken since the field trip. Why are you sitting next to me? Why are you even on this bus?” I didn’t pull my punches here. My words came out harsh. 

Grover winched. “Look, Percy...I’m just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating demon math teachers…” 

“Grover,” I growled. 

“And I’m heading toward my, um...summer address.” From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card and handed it to me. “Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.” 

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like: ****

**Grover Underwood**

**Keeper**

**Half-Blood Hill**

**Long Island, New York**

**(800) 009-0009**

“Why would I need you?” I asked him, flicking the business card back to him. My words had come out cold and harsh as ice. I didn’t care. Grover hadn’t been there for me, and after all the times that I’d gotten into fights, keeping the bullies away from him. I’d lost even more sleep worrying that he’d get beaten up next year without me. 

Grover blushed right down to his Adam’s apple. “Um, please keep it. Just in case.” 

Before I could refuse him a second time, there was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we’d all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. 

We were on a stretch of country road - no place you’d notice if you didn’t break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. 

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I’d ever seen. I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. All three women looked ancient, with pale faced wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandanas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. 

They seemed to be looking at me. 

I remembered my encounter with Mrs. Doods all too well. The horrific memories flared up in my mind and I shivered, taking a step backward. My limbs went cold with fear. There were three of them this time and I didn’t have Mr. Brunner to give me a pen sword. What would these ones turn into? What terrible creature were they? 

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. “Tell me they’re not looking at you. They are, aren’t they?” 

“Yeah,” I said quietly. Grover’s reaction to them only made me more afraid. Before, he’d been scared of Mrs. Dodds too. Now he was practically shaking at the sight of these three old ladies. It made me think that I’d been right. Had Grover been lying to me this whole time? Pretending that Mrs. Dodds never existed when really he knew the truth? 

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors - gold and silver, long-bladed like shears. 

I heard Grover catch his breath. “We’re getting on the bus,” he told me. “Come on.” He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. 

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip_ across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks. 

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered. “Darn right!” yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. “Everybody back on board!” 

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I’d caught the flu. 

Grover didn’t look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. 

“Grover?” 

“Yeah?” 

“What are you not telling me?” 

Grover shook his head. “I’m not not telling you anything, Percy. Is this bus really cold to you?” He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. “I think I’m coming down with something.” 

“Are you scared of the old ladies? They’re not like...Mrs. Dodds, are they?” 

Grover’s expression was hard to read. “What old ladies?” 

So it was going to be like that, huh? I fell silent, leaning against the window, shivering and sweating. For the rest of the bus ride I tried to decide if I’d really seen those old ladies or if they were another hallucination. Somehow, they weren’t any less scary than Mrs. Dodds had been, even though they didn’t turn into demons.  
  
  
  


I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. Whenever he got upset, his bladder acted up, so I wasn’t surprised when, as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and called the first taxi uptown. “East One-hundred-and-fourth and First,” I told the driver. 

A while later, I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. 

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, “So you’re home.” 

“Where’s my mom?” 

“Working,” Gabe said. “You got any cash?” 

That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the past six months? Hey, you look like crap, wanna talk about it?_

Not that I wanted Gabe’s friendliness. If he was being friendly, it meant he wanted something from me that he wouldn’t put to words. And whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our 'guy secret.' Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. I couldn’t deal with Gabe today. Too much had happened. 

I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. “I hope you lose.” 

“Your report card came, brain boy!” Gabe sneered. “I wouldn’t act so snooty!” 

I hurried to my room, quietly closing the door behind me. This wasn’t really my room. During school months, it was Gabe’s ‘study.’ He didn’t study anything in here except old porno magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer. 

I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home. The first thing I did was open the window to let in some fresh air. I knocked Gabe’s boots onto the fire escape. 

Gabe’s smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of the old fruit lady’s shears snipping the yarn. 

As soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. A chill rolled through me. I felt like someone - something - was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. I dropped to the floor and dragged myself beneath the bed. It was, ironically, the only clean place in my room. 

I don’t know how long I was beneath the bed before mom came home. “Percy?” She called through the door. 

I pulled myself out from beneath the bed and onto it before she could even turn the knob. 

She opened the door, and my fears melted. My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. When she looks at me, it’s like she’s seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. “Oh, Percy.” She hugged me tight. “I can’t believe it. You’ve grown since Christmas!” Mom gave me a bag of blueberry sour strings. 

I let mom hold me and pet my hair. I really needed her and couldn’t even pretend that I didn’t. But as much as I needed her, I couldn’t tell mom the truth about what happened. About how I’d gone crazy. I tried to put a positive spin on the year but I was so worn down that I couldn’t even pretend. 

“What?” my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. “Did something scare you?” 

“No, Mom,” I lied. 

Mom pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn’t push me. “I have a surprise for you,” she said. “We’re going to the beach.” 

“Montauk?” I asked, my voice sounding dull even to my own ears. 

Concern flashed across mom’s face. “Three nights - same cabin.” 

“When?” 

She smiled. “As soon as I get changed.” 

It was a good thing I hadn’t bothered to unpack. The cabin in Montauk didn’t have a washer and dryer but we could stop at a laundromat. 

Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, “Bean dip, Sally. Didn’t you hear me?” 

Mom made Gabe her special seven-layer bean dip. When she was done, she changed out of her work clothes, and picked up her suitcase. Whenever mom looked at me, it was with anxiety in her eyes.  
  
  
  


An hour later, we were on the road in Gabe’s ‘78 Camaro. Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. 

I loved the place. 

This was where mom met my dad. Eventually I got up the nerve to ask her about what was on my mind whenever we came to Montauk - my father. Mom’s eyes went all misty. “He was kind, Percy,” she said. “Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes. I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud.” 

I wondered how she could say that. What was so special about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years, murderer or certified insane. 

“Are you going to send me away again?” I asked her. “To another boarding school?” 

Mom pulled a marshmallow from the fire. “I don’t know, honey.” Her voice was heavy. “I think...I think we’ll have to do something.” 

“Because you don’t want me around?” I regretted the words as soon as they were out. There were some things I didn’t want to know. 

My mom’s eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. “Oh, Percy, no. I-I _have_ to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away.” 

When mom called me honey, a chill went down my spine. It reminded me of Mrs. Dodds calling me honey before she tried to kill me. It reminded me that I was crazy. I stood up and went into the cabin. I needed space to breathe and didn’t want mom to see my hands shaking. 

“Percy!” Mom called after me. 

I crawled into bed and didn’t answer.  
  
  
  


I dreamed that I was in the back of a car. A big man had his hands on my thighs, yanking me to him while I screamed and tried to twist away. His hands turned into talons that left deep gouges down my thighs as I tumbled head over heels out of the backseat of the car. 

I ran, something hot and wet dripping down my thighs but not from the gouges. The gouges were gone when I paused to check. 

Something screamed _help me_ in a distorted, inhuman voice. The only living thing I saw was a big black dog. The dog was the size of a horse and it’s muzzle was white as bone. It opened its jaws and screamed _help me!_ More of the dogs appeared in the trees, melting out of the shadows. Their inhuman voices joined the first. Every single one was looking at me. 

I ran through a forest with tree trunks that were twisted like women’s bodies. They didn’t like me, though I couldn’t say how I knew that. Maybe for bringing the dogs into their forest. 

The ground sloped up, a hill. My ankle was on fire, throbbing as I ran and ran. The little bones ground together, shooting pain up my leg. The hill went on and on. I looked up. It was a mountain and it disappeared into the clouds. The sun blinded me. I tripped. 

The dogs caught up and I learned the terrible truth; their muzzles weren’t white with fur. It was bare bone. Their teeth tore into my flesh, ripped away huge chunks of my body. 

Thunder rumbled overhead, shaking the earth. The dogs didn’t notice, just kept eating me. A clap of thunder boomed so loud that I could no longer hear the cracking of my own bones. 

I sat up in bed, drenched in sweat. My heart beat so hard and fast, I thought I was having a heart attack. 

Outside, it was really storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. Lightning made false daylight and twenty-foot waves pounded the dunes like artillery. 

Mom woke up with the next thunder clap. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, “Hurricane.” 

Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. Was it real? Was it a ghost from my dream? 

I clutched the blanket. 

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice - someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. 

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. 

Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn’t...he wasn’t exactly Grover. “Searching all night,” he gasped. “What were you thinking?” 

Mom looked at me in terror - not scared of Grover, but of why he’d come. “Percy,” she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. “What happened at school? What didn’t you tell me?” 

I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. It was like my nightmares had come to life, like Mrs. Dodds was happening all over again. Because where his feet should have been, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves. 

Mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she’d never used before: “ _Percy._ Tell me _now_!” 

I was too shocked to do anything but shake my head. He lied to me. All these months, Grover knew what Mrs. Dodds was, and he lied to me. He let me think I was crazy. Monsters were real and they were everywhere. Anyone could be a monster. 

I was going to kill Grover.  
  
  
  


I don’t remember how they got me into the car. We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. 

I pressed as far away from Grover as I could. He smelled like wet fur but I wasn’t going to take any chances. Maybe this was another disguise. “What _are_ you?” I asked quietly. 

“That doesn’t matter right now,” Grover said hastily. 

I didn’t try to hide my annoyance. “Right, some kid from school is a donkey from the waist down and -” 

Grover let out a sharp, throaty “ _Blaa-ha-ha!_ ” I always thought that was a nervous laugh but now I realized it was an irritated bleat. “Goat! I’m a goat from the waist down!” 

“You just said it didn’t matter,” I reminded him. There was venom in my voice that I didn’t bother to hide. 

“ _Bla-ha-ha!_ There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!” Grover wrinkled his nose in annoyance. 

Satyr. Like the creatures in Mr. Brunner’s myths. Was everything from the myths true? I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn’t do it. Maybe it was a dream? Maybe I was lying in a hospital bed in a coma because the bus crashed on the way to the museum? I could only hope. 

The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail. At least it didn’t sound like human words coming from an inhuman body. Sort of. Goosebumps rose on my skin. What if it was something like Mrs. Dodds, coming to finish the job? “What was that?” I asked. My limbs went numb as I thought of Mrs. Dodds. 

“We’re almost there,” my mother said, ignoring my question. “Another mile. Please. Please. Please.” 

I didn’t know where _there_ was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. It had to be some sort of sanctuary, right? A place where everything would make sense? Or maybe mom was driving me to the insane asylum because she somehow knew Grover, which meant they’d communicated before, which meant that mom had to know I’d gone crazy, right? 

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness - the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. The hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!_ , and our car exploded. 

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver’s seat and said, “Ow.” Blood ran down my face. I was hurt but like a headache, not like bleeding. Touching my forehead, I only felt a goose-egg swelling up. The skin wasn’t broken. Where was the blood coming from? 

“Percy,” mom groaned. The back of her head was coated in blood. There was a dent in the back, something dark and sticky in her hair. 

I didn’t hit the back of the driver’s seat. I hit the back of mom’s head. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine. You have a hard head, honey,” mom muttered. She seemed more dazed and out of it than me. She rested her forehead against the airbag. The rise and fall of her back as she breathed calmed me a little. 

I tried to shake off the daze and fumbled for my seatbelt. The car hadn’t really exploded, we’d swerved into a ditch. The drivers side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. 

The lightning had blasted us off the road. 

Beside me, Grover was a big motionless lump. Blood trickled from the side of his mouth. For a moment, I thought it must be some sort of trick. Grover had lied to me often enough that I didn’t trust he was really unconscious. 

“Percy,” my mother said, “we have to…” Her voice faltered. 

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy. His upraised hands looked like horns. My brain told me that something was wrong with the man. Something terribly wrong and I needed to leave immediately. I needed to get out of the car right now and run for my life. 

But I couldn’t leave mom. 

For the first time since the field trip in January, I remembered that I had slayed Mrs. Dodds like a demon come straight from hell. Really remembered it beyond the sensation of the sword cutting into flesh. Maybe I didn’t have a sword, but I could make do. I’d find something else to use as a weapon and I would take this man down. After all, I’ve already killed one person. Might as well kill another...especially if it meant saving my mom. 

I crawled out of the passenger side door and over Grover’s limp body. The rain soaked through my clothes in seconds, made them cling to me like a second skin. Mom’s blood washed clean from my face. Standing made my head spin. Did I have a concussion? I grabbed the thick branch of a pine laying beside the road and climbed back onto the asphalt to face our pursuer. 

In a strike of lightning, I got my first clear glance at the man. He was seven feet tall, easy, with arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazine. His head was furry bull head, black fur and a long snout. The end of his snout had a gleaming brass ring. His black and white horns were so sharp I could imagine them puncturing my guts as he gored me. He wore no clothes except for bright white underwear. 

For a second, I remembered my dream where the man with the talons dragged me into the back of a car, intending on hurting me, then I pushed the dream away. The important thing was that I recognized this monster of a man from Mr. Brunner’s class. He was unmistakably the Minotaur. 

The Minotaur bellowed at me. His voice was eerily similar to the dogs from my dreams, just human enough to make my skin crawl. 

I screamed back at him, roaring my rage and fear, a challenge. The pine branch felt flimsy in my hands. Would I be able to stab him with it? Would it do anything except enrage him? It was all I had. 

The Minotaur lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest. 

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn’t work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. 

The Minotaur stormed past me like a freight train. He smelled just like a barnyard bull. Then he bellowed with frustration and turned. But not toward me. Toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass. 

She would never be able to dodge the Minotaur like I had. She was too hurt, I could tell even from a distance. 

The Minotaur looked at me before he charged and there was a wicked knowledge there, knowledge that what he was going to do would hurt me more than anything. He grunted, pawing the ground. Then he charged. 

I stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged mom. She tried to sidestep, as I’d done, but she was too slow and the Minotaur had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. 

“Mom!” 

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: “Go!” 

Then, with an angry roar, the Minotaur closed his fists around my mother’s neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply...gone. 

“No!” Anger washed my vision red, poured strength into my limbs. I ran across the asphalt, unarmed, the pine branch gone. I’m sure that I didn’t look like much so the Minotuar didn’t even move as I leapt straight up...and onto his back. Physical Education wasn’t exactly my strong suit so this was a surprise for me, but a good one. Part of me had thought I’d be gored and follow my mother into that blinding golden light. 

The Minotaur staggered around, trying to shake me. He shook himself and bucked like a rodeo bull. 

I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. I got both of my hands around one horn and pulled backward with all of my might. 

The Minotaur tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then - _snap!_ He screamed and flung me through the air. 

I landed flat on my back in the grass, the air pushed out of my lungs. My head smacked against a rock. For a few moments, I lay there stunned. This time I knew that my head was bleeding and I’d have more than just a goose egg to show for it. When I sat up, my vision was blurry. Not just because of the pouring rain. But I had a horn in my hands, ragged bone the size of a knife. 

Seeing that I was alive, the Minotaur charged. 

I rolled to one side, fought nausea, and came up kneeling. As the Minotaur barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. It went easier than I ever dared hope it would. I felt every inch of the slow slide of my makeshift weapon into the Minotaur’s flesh. Hot sand poured over my hands in the place of blood. 

The Minotaur roared in agony. He began to slowly disintegrate like crumbling sand, falling away in chunks blown by the wind. It was the same way Mrs. Dodds had gone, except for the rain. This, more than anything, proved to me that Mrs. Dodds was real and everyone I knew was lying to me. 

The rain stopped abruptly. The storm still rumbled but it became distant. In the absence of the howling wind and drumming rain, the world felt oddly quiet. 

My knees shook. My head felt like it was splitting open. I wanted to lie down and cry, but this wasn’t the place. I wasn’t safe here. Grover a few feet away from me, only a few seconds from being trampled by the Minotaur. He owed me so much that I couldn’t even tally it all in my mind...but I couldn’t leave him here. Unsteadily, I rose to my feet and hauled Grover up. 

“Up the hill,” he muttered with his eyes closed. “To the farmhouse.” Grover managed to get his feet beneath him and took some of my weight. Together we hiked up the hill. 

There were lights spread out in the valley below and in the distance, a bonfire. We passed by a giant pine tree, the kind that they put in Time Square for Christmas. In the back of my mind, I noticed that the ground was completely dry on this side of the pine tree. We staggered down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. 

The second I reached the farmhouse porch, I collapsed onto it with Grover beside me. Tears rolled down my cheeks. The last thing I remember was looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light.


	2. I Will Run After You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood. Luke takes care of Percy and sends him on his first quest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Watch me fill in Rick's plot holes.

The night was humid and stormy. Looking around at the group of faces, lit up by firelight, no one expected the rain to dampen their spirits and sure enough, the rain didn’t even touch them. I stood on the outskirts of the group, just barely inside the circle of firelight. 

I heard Annabeth’s running footsteps on the gravel as she sprinted toward us. She skidded to a stop, her blonde princess curls flying forward to cover her face. “Luke,” she panted. She always panted around me so I couldn’t tell if it was exertion or just...hormones. “New boy at the Big House!” 

“Is he hurt?” I asked, already jogging in that direction. 

Annabeth kept pace with me. “He slayed the Minotaur.” 

My jog turned into an all-out sprint. The ground was eaten up beneath my sandals. I didn’t slow as I leapt onto the porch of the Big House and crashed through the double-wide front doors. Once inside the house, I slowed to a more presentable speed walk, pushing off the walls as I went around corners so that I didn’t lose momentum. 

Half of the first floor of the Big House was an infirmary made up of three rooms. Only one door was open and light spilled out into the hallway. From within, I heard the _clip clop_ of hooves and the swishing of a tail. That was the room I headed for. 

Chiron stood over an examination table with his back to me. His white stallion body covered most of my view. He gestured to a countertop. “Please get ready, Luke.” 

I picked up the clipboard and pen. On the clipboard was a packet of New Camper paperwork. “Ready, Chiron,” I said after scribbling to make sure the pen worked. 

The room smelled like the brackish water where fresh river water met salty ocean water. It also smelled like blood and mud and barnyard animals. Moving around Chiron to see the boy, I saw why. 

The boy was smeared with mud. He was bleeding in a few places, nothing too bad. There was a huge knot on his forehead. 

“His name is Percy Jackson,” Chiron said. He picked up a pair of medical grade scissors that looked like miniature shears and began to cut away the boy’s clothing. With a few efficient cuts, the boy lay naked. The sneakers Chiron just pulled off. 

Percy. His name was Percy. “Full name or is that a nickname?” I asked as I carefully wrote it down in my tight, cramped handwriting. People always thought that Luke was short for something but it wasn’t. 

“Perseus,” Chiron answered. He pointed out some bruising on Percy’s stomach. The deep bruises beneath Percy’s skin were far more concerning than the blood outside of his body. “Internal bleeding,” he said. 

My stomach clenched in sympathy. I sketched out a quick outline of the pooling blood on the second page of the packet. “Age?” I prompted. My eyes slid over his features. He had the juxtaposition of childhood; soft rounded belly with bony hips that jutted out. High cheekbones but clinging baby fat made his face look rounded. If he lived, Percy would likely burn that off in a couple of years. His balls hadn’t dropped yet, I noted to myself. 

“Twelve,” Chiron replied. “He’ll be thirteen on August 18th.” He rattled off Percy’s measurements and stats. I wasn’t sure if he knew just by looking or if he’d looked at Percy’s school file a lot. 

_So young,_ I thought with a frown as I wrote it all down. 

“Clean him up, Luke, and mind his head. I’ll go get some nectar.” Chiron left us alone, then. He would be back soon, but he kept the nectar and ambrosia under lock and key. Supposedly it was because we’d steal it otherwise and it was for emergencies but I wasn’t too sure about that. 

I set the clipboard aside and walked to the sink to fill a bucket. I couldn’t say that this was my favorite job ever; but I didn’t have to do it often. Kids didn’t usually come in fighting Minotaurs and could usually escort themselves to the shower. When the bucket was full of warm water, I grabbed a clean sponge from the counter and a washcloth, and brought it all to the examiners table. 

I started with his face and hair. The kid really was covered in mud. It must have been raining pretty good outside of the boundary...and he must have been tossed around quite a bit. And there was blood on the back of his head. I did not like the feeling of slight give at the back of his head. By the time I got to his shoulders, the water in the bucket was muddy. I dumped it out an open window then went back to the sink to refill it. 

Percy was still unconscious by the time I returned. He was quiet until I got to the big dark bruises on his abdomen, then he whimpered. His brow furrowed and his fingers twitched like he wanted to push me away. 

“Sorry, kiddo,” I murmured. I tried to be gentler. Just because I couldn’t see the damage, didn’t mean it wasn’t there beneath his skin. As it was, Percy had a lot of bruises. Some were yellow with age. As I bathed him, I noticed something strange. There were no visible scars on his body; not even a single one. I double checked. 

“I don’t think you’ll find any scars on young Mr. Jackson,” Chiron said, coming up behind me. He had a container of nectar and a small dropper in his hands. 

“Why not?” I asked, frowning. Demigods healed fast but we could still scar. Unless Percy had been living a soft life in the lap of luxury, he should have had at least one. The yellow bruises told me he was either a jock or he wasn’t living in the lap of luxury. 

Chiron simply shook his head. He knew something about the boy but he wouldn’t tell me. Fine. I could figure it out. “Only give him a little. We’ll have to heal him slowly.” 

I hauled the bucket of dirty water back to the sink to dispose of later. Then I returned to the table and measured out a small dose of the amber liquid. I glanced at Chiron, waiting for his nod of approval, before I put the tip of the dropper between Percy’s lips. Drop by drop, I let the nectar slide down his throat. When they were unconscious like this, they could drown in nectar if it got in their lungs, so small doses were a necessity. 

“He’ll need a dose every hour for the next twelve hours,” Chiron said. He raised an eyebrow at me. I wasn’t his official apprentice but after being here for five years, Chiron had begun to teach me the art of healing. It also had a lot to do with none of the Apollo kids being interested in it. So much for being children of the god of medicine. 

“I’ll do it,” I volunteered. This was going to be a long twelve hours. 

“Thank you, Luke,” Chiron said. “Young Percy is in good hands.” 

I couldn’t help but smile at his words. I was such a sucker for praise. Even that little bit made it worth the inevitable lack of sleep to come. 

Chiron bade me good night and left to retire to his room. 

I took care of the dirty water and threw the washcloth in the hamper. The sponge went into the trash. I grabbed the clipboard and started working on the rest of the paperwork; filling out what I could do while he was unconscious. Mostly that meant taking down detailed descriptions of Percy’s body; where the moles and scars were, any oddly colored patches of skin, tattoos, etc...basically anything that could later be used to identify him. There wasn’t much to go on. 

Percy’s body was smooth and aside from the paler parts normally kept beneath clothes, his skin was a pretty even shade of brown. He was circumcised. He had the correct number of fingers and toes. Peeling his lip back with my pen revealed _very_ sharp teeth but aside from how pointy they were, there wasn’t anything abnormal about them. They were straight and white and he didn’t have braces or rubber bands. 

Basically, the kid was totally perfect and aside from those teeth, would make a completely unrecognizable corpse. I bit my lip, considering. Then I twirled the pen and twisted so that the light clicked on. Carefully I thumbed open one eyelid and shined the pen light onto his iris. 

It lit up. The effect was like putting a piece of green sea glass on a flashlight. The shine covered both the iris and the pupil…strange. I rotated the penlight. From the side, Percy’s pupil turned black again but his irises were still that glowing green. Almost...could it be eyeshine? It wasn’t unheard of in demigods; the children of Hecate had it to help them see in the dark. 

I let Percy’s eyelid lower. He hadn’t reacted at all to the penlight. If his chest wasn’t steadily rising and falling, I would have been more worried. Well, that was a distinct feature...as long as nothing happened to his eyeballs. I added it to his chart. That was about all I could do without Chiron or Percy to fill in the blanks. I set the clipboard and pen on the counter. 

Then I grabbed the throw blanket off the back of the living room couch and one of the pillows, and went back to the infirmary. Percy hadn’t moved. I didn’t expect him to for a long while. On a spare table, I made my bed. It wasn’t the worst place I’d ever slept. 

But I couldn’t sleep just yet. There were spare sets of clothes in the basement, which was where they kept the inventory for the camp store. I turned the light on before heading down the basement stairs. The Big House is kept in good order and so it wasn’t a creepy basement like some places I’d been in. The shelves lining the walls were full of packaged stock…including camp clothes. I picked out clothes in Percy’s size then went back upstairs. 

I glanced at the analog clock on the wall. Chiron used to have a traditional one but not too many of us demigods can read it so he switched to analog. Thirty minutes until I had to give Percy his next dose of nectar. Where had the time gone? 

A yawn split my jaws. Okay. Get Percy dressed. It was easier than you’d think to move the boy around like a doll. I was strong, for one. For two, the kid didn’t even weigh a hundred pounds. If I had to guess, I’d say he was eighty pounds max. When he was dressed again, I pulled a sheet out of a cupboard and covered him with it. I yawned again. A quick nap and then I’d give Percy his medicine. I turned the lights off then crawled up onto the table and laid my head on the pillow. 

Even when I was asleep, I could feel the passing of time. Every second was a _ping_ that I felt somewhere deep inside of me. I woke up half an hour later, rubbing my eyes as I rolled off the table to my feet. I filled the dropper with nectar then slowly _drip, drip, dripped_ it down Percy’s throat. 

He didn’t respond. The kid was out cold. 

I went back to sleep for another hour and then repeated the process. There were no changes the first five hours. On the sixth hour, I almost dropped the nectar because Percy’s eyes were open. 

The moonlight reflected off of them, giving them a faint luminescence. “My mom,” he whispered. “He took my mom.” 

No one said anything to me about the kids mom. I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said, stepping up to his side. 

Percy’s eyes slid closed. He was asleep again in seconds. At least he slept with his mouth open so I didn’t have to pry his jaws apart to get the nectar into him. 

I watched his face - his eyes and those teeth - but Percy didn’t stir again. 

The sun began to rise at 7:01am exactly. I rose with it, deciding that I’d slept enough for the night even though my eyes ached. I checked on Percy - he was still breathing and still sleeping - then gave him his nectar for the hour. Carefully, I pushed his shirt up to get a look at the blood from whatever inside him had ruptured. It still looked ugly as Hades but it did appear a little faded and a little smaller. Gently, I rolled Percy onto his side and checked his back. His skin was faintly reddish but that was just from laying on it all night. The wound on the back of his head seemed healed. I settled him onto his back again. 

Percy whimpered when I moved him but he was still firmly in the hands of Hypnos. 

I wandered into the kitchen, pondering this. Should he be asleep this long? Should we have let him sleep at all? What if he had a concussion? I opened the fridge. There was a carton of griffin eggs and a package of wild boar bacon. Next to them was a glass gallon jug of _Persephone’s Pomegranate Juice._ I got the ingredients for my breakfast and started cooking. While the bacon sizzled, I poured myself a glass of the juice. I opened the breadbox and reached for the loaf inside. 

“That’s Demeter’s bread,” Dionysus said from behind me. 

I didn’t jump but my shoulders stiffened with surprise. I turned around to glare at Dionysus. 

Dionysus sat at the island counter, looking so lovely it was painful. He looked as he used to in the Ancient times, when he wandered the earth as a mortal - before Zeus punished him by sending him here - with perfect curly brown hair that fell to his shoulders, cherubic features painted red with a flush, and his Hawaiian shirt completely unbuttoned to reveal a hairless chest. The loveliness was at once diminished and enhanced by the fact that Dionysus was eating a raw, bloody strip of meat with his bare hands. He only ever looked like his true self when he was alone in the Big House, where the annoying kids couldn’t gawk at him. 

“Well,” I said as I tried to calm my racing heart. The meat he held could have belonged to any animal. I didn’t want to find out which one it was. “This isn’t a communal breadbox and her name isn’t on it.” Not to mention, it wasn’t harvest season. I turned my back on Dionysus even though it made my skin tingle to do so, and cut the bread into narrow slices so that they would fit in the toaster. 

The _clip clop_ of hooves clued me in to Chiron’s presence. Chiron stepped up to the stove beside me to make himself some oatmeal. “How is our patient?” 

“He woke up for a minute last night to ask about his mom,” I said, raising an eyebrow at Chiron. He’d better explain about that. I wanted to be able to tell the kid something. I added the eggs to my bacon pan and watched them turn opaque. 

Chiron hummed thoughtfully. “Grover explained to me that Mrs. Sally Jackson drove them to Camp Half-Blood from Montauk. He was a bit, ah, fuzzy on the details but it seems that Sally disappeared in a flash of golden light just before being maimed by the Minotaur. It isn’t clear what happened to her.” He added cinnamon to his oatmeal and stirred. 

Chiron’s answer was less than satisfying. The whole thing reeked of the gods' interference. It wasn’t like I could say that aloud, though, so I changed the subject. “Should he be sleeping this long?” 

“You slept for a whole week after your silly little Quest,” Dionysus said behind us. 

My blood boiled. I counted the seconds, willing my blood pressure to drop down to something that wouldn’t make my heart explode. By the time I was in control of my temper, my eggs were overdone and the toast had been sitting popped up long enough for the heat to go out of it. I scraped the eggs onto a plate with the bacon, setting it aside as I scraped honey over the toast. It didn’t melt into the bread quite the way I’d wanted it to. Maybe Demeter really _did_ own this loaf. Or maybe I was letting the gods fuck with me again. 

The kitchen didn’t have a proper dining table so I was forced to sit at the island counter with Dionysus. I chose the seat as far away from him as I could manage. 

Chiron joined us a little while later, having added sliced apples to his oatmeal. It was times like this that I wondered how much of him was really a horse. His obvious hindquarters aside, Chiron sometimes did things like eating horse food for breakfast that just made me wonder. “Percy should wake up in the next twenty-four hours. If he doesn’t, then we can worry. His condition isn’t as bad as yours, Luke.” 

I nodded. Percy may have ruptured something internally but by the gods at least all his organs were _inside_ of his body where they belonged. I tried not to think about it too hard as I ate my toast because if I did, then I wouldn’t want to eat for the rest of the day. 

“Is he feverish?” Chiron asked. 

I shook my head. Percy’s skin felt cool and dry. I ate my breakfast quickly so that I wouldn’t be in Dionysus’ presence any longer than necessary. It was almost always easier to look at the ugly drunk man than the beautiful feral creature before me. I washed my dishes and set them on the rack to dry. Then I escaped to the infirmary. 

The brackish smell of mixed water hit my nose, which, combined with the closed door at my back, made the tension melt out of me. I leaned against the door for a few moments, breathing, calming down. Then I forced myself to hold my own weight and half stumbled over to Percy’s table. 

He slept, a cute furrow between his brows and drool sliding out the corner of his mouth. Percy hadn’t moved so much as an inch, not even to twitch his fingers. If it wasn’t for the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, I would have thought that I was looking at a fresh corpse. He didn’t react when I lifted his shirt to look at his abdomen. 

I skimmed my fingertips over the dark, damaged skin. 

Percy whimpered. The furrow in his brow became more pronounced. 

I pulled my hand away and lowered his shirt again. After a glance at the clock, I got Percy’s nectar ready and gave it to him. With my belly full and the curtains drawn to darken the room, I decided that a nap was in order. That way I’d be more focused when I had to give my sword fighting lesson this afternoon. I laid down on my table and settled in for a nap. 

An hour later, I opened my eyes and made to sit up. 

Chiron stood over Percy. He glanced at me and smiled. “You can go back to sleep, Luke. I’ll take over his medication for the rest of the day.” 

“Okay, Chiron,” I mumbled and laid back down. I listened to Chiron move around the room and the sound of a pen on paper - filling in the blanks on Percy’s sheet - then the retreating of his hooves. 

I finally sank deeper into sleep. There was nowhere I had to be until lunch. 

The next time I woke up, someone else was in the room with us. Annabeth stood beside the table Percy lay on. Her expression was one I’d seen many times before; full of greed as she looked at him. She got that look on her face whenever she saw a new camper who might be The One to fulfill the prophecy. Because Percy slayed the Minotaur, I suspected that Annabeth would dog him especially hard until she was sure he wasn’t The One. 

I cleared my throat to get Annabeth’s attention. 

Annabeth whipped her head around to look at me, her gray eyes cold as steel and her blonde curls bouncing. “Did you sleep here all night?” she asked, even though she must have known the answer. It was a leading sort of question. 

“Yes,” I said. I rubbed my eyes with my hands. “Though I didn’t get much sleep.” 

Annabeth’s gaze sharpened, reminding me of a bear trap. “Why don’t you go take a shower, Luke? I’ll take care of him until you get back.” She knew that suggesting I completely give up my caretaking duties would only make me send her away. Sometimes I worried about how clever she was and what she used that cleverness for. 

Especially since she was right. I really, _really_ wanted a shower. Normally I waited until after curfew to take them so that no one would see me naked...but with the arrival of Percy, I hadn’t yet had a chance to wash off the sweat from yesterday. If there was one thing I despised, it was being dirty. I sighed. “He needs nectar every hour,” I warned Annabeth though I wasn’t intending to be gone for that long. 

I could practically hear the _snap_ of her mind as I deliberately stepped into her trap. 

“Got it,” Annabeth said. She smiled. Her teeth were square and white but I couldn’t help think of a predator. 

“Go get some from Chiron, alright?” I ordered, making sure that she knew I wasn’t going to move until she did as I said. 

Annabeth glanced at Percy. Then she dashed out of the room. I heard her sneakers pounding on the hardwood floors. That would only take a minute. 

I yawned and slid off the table. After stretching, I padded over to Percy and lifted his shirt. The bruises were almost gone and his abdomen was no longer dark with blood. If he was this healed then he would be waking up soon. I debated between waiting for him to wake up and taking a shower. It was lunchtime so the other campers would be busy eating and I would have the communal showers to myself. If I didn’t take the opportunity, then I wouldn’t be able to shower until late tonight. 

Annabeth came rushing back, holding a bowl of pureed ambrosia. She skidded to a halt so quickly that she nearly lost the spoon. “Chiron said he’s probably ready for solids.” Annabeth stirred the blended ambrosia and made a doubtful face as though she didn’t believe that the pudding-like substance counted as a solid. She moved to my place and nudged me. I caught a whiff of her old books and freshly sharpened pencil scent. “Go on, stinky,” she said. Her gray eyes were bright. 

I left Percy in Annabeth’s hands. Her obsession with Percy’s possible parentage meant that she would take good care of him while I was gone. I went down to the basement and stole some clean clothes for myself as well as a towel, then sprinted around the lake to the communal showers. The Campers at Camp Half-Blood shared locker-room style bathrooms that were basically the worst. It was one step above bathing in the sink of a public bathroom. The Big House had bathrooms but Campers weren’t allowed to use them. 

It was one of the many unfair things about being a demigod and living at Camp Half-Blood. 

No one else was in the bathrooms. I set my clothes down, stripped naked, and avoided looking in the mirrors. Because it was the middle of the day, I got actual hot water to shower with. It was bliss. I wished I could take a warm bath. But there weren’t bathtubs available to me. I hadn’t taken a bath since I was a small child. 

I scrubbed myself clean and washed my hair. It was quick, efficient. I could take a shower in less than two minutes if I had to. I stretched it out to ten minutes, just to enjoy the solitude. No one was here, I had a rare moment to myself. My hand slid down toward my cock. I rarely had a chance to touch myself because I was almost never alone. My breath caught as I curled my fingers around my cock. Even though I was soft, my touch still felt good. A couple strokes and I was fully erect. It had been too long. I let my eyes slide closed as I stroked myself. My hand was fast on my cock, there wasn’t any time to waste. I was going to cum soon, only a minute or two away. 

Then the bathroom door creaked open. It was the only warning I got. I tucked my cock between my thighs and yanked my hand away from my crotch. A sniff brought the scent of molten metal and oranges; Beckendorf. 

“Hey, Luke,” Beckendorf said as he walked past me and went into the half of the bathroom with the toilet stalls. “How’s it going?” 

“Hey, Beckendorf,” I replied. “It’s going.” I shared down at my thighs, frustrated that I’d been interrupted. There wasn’t time to finish and I didn’t want to stay in here while Beckendorf was here. I shut off the water and quickly got dried off and dressed. Before Beckendorf was out, I left the bathroom and headed back toward the Big House. 

I was on the porch when I heard the yell. That was followed by a clatter. 

I ran through the Big House toward the room I left Percy and Annabeth in. I burst through the door and stopped short. 

The bowl of ambrosia was on the floor. Annabeth stood with a black eye, looking like she was planning murder. The look wasn’t softened by the fact that she had her dagger unsheathed. Percy’s bed was empty. 

My chest squeezed with fear. “Where is he?” I asked her. 

Annabeth pointed up to the top of the cabinets. 

I followed her finger. 

Percy had squeezed himself into the small space at the top of the cabinets. There was about a foot of space between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. He bared his teeth in a silent hiss. The threatening expression was diminished by the wideness of his eyes and the fact that one of his front teeth was chipped. His pupils were narrow pinpricks. 

I was reminded of a feral cat. “Oh,” I said dumbly. Percy and I stared at each other. How did he get up there? Why was he up there? What did Annabeth do to scare him? Didn’t he have a mother? Why would he act like a feral cat when he had a home? I broke eye contact first. “What happened?” I asked Annabeth. Why was one of his teeth chipped? I would have noticed earlier. 

Annabeth sneered. “He woke up and punched me,” Annabeth said. She gestured to the mess on the floor, her scowl deepening. “I was just doing what you said to.” 

Part of me felt that I should have known not to let Annabeth handle this. I should have just waited for my shower. Maybe I would have been able to jack off, too, if I’d waited till tonight. I tipped Annabeth’s chin up so that I could look at her black eye. 

The black eye was swollen shut. Only a glimmer of her gray irises shone. But nothing looked broken beneath the skin. Annabeth’s face grew steadily redder, starting with her cheeks and blooming toward her ears. Her scent shifted, turned sweet. She had a look in her eyes that made me uncomfortable. 

I dropped my hands to her shoulders and turned her around, steering Annabeth toward the door. “Alright. I’ve got it from here. Go put some ice on that,” I said. I ignored her protests and closed the door behind her. Without looking at Percy, I began to clean up the mess on the floor. In a few minutes there was no sign it had even been there. I rinsed out the bowl and the spoon in the sink, leaving them upside down in the sink to dry until I could properly take care of them. 

Finally, I looked up at Percy. He’d stretched out as much as he could, chin hanging over the edge of the cabinet. He looked tired and a little bit like he might faint. 

“Are you okay?” I asked him. 

Percy didn’t answer. He just looked at me like he was debating if I could be trusted or not. His pupils were still narrow pinpricks. Now that I was looking at him, he was curled in on himself again. 

I pursed my lips, debating how to handle this. If Chiron or Dionysus had to be called in, then things would just escalate. There was no one else to coax Percy down from there without making things so much worse. “Okay. Well, can you get down from there or are you stuck?” 

Percy’s eyes flickered from me to the nearest countertop. A furrow appeared in his brow as he considered my question. He shrugged. Or maybe he just squeezed himself tighter into the corner. 

Was I really supposed to believe that this kid slayed the Minotaur? Unless he was acting like this because he was traumatized by the experience. That didn’t speak well to his chances of survival. “I won’t hurt you,” I promised, knowing that it didn’t mean much coming from a strange adult. I still had to try. “I’m Luke.” 

Nothing. 

“I’ve been taking care of you since you got here,” I said. Did he even know where he was? “You’re at Camp Half-Blood. You arrived here yesterday.” 

There was a flicker of recognition in Percy’s expression. “Is this Half-Blood Hill?” Percy’s voice was raspy. He swallowed audibly. 

Now it was my turn to be surprised. So he knew the address but not the name of the Camp. What on earth did they tell him? “One and the same,” I confirmed. 

Percy cast his gaze around. His eyes lingered on the table I’d been sleeping on. “I was with my...friend. Grover. Is he okay?” 

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard otherwise,” I admitted. Surely if Grover was severely injured or killed, I would have heard about it? Even in passing it was something that Chiron would have mentioned. Or Annabeth. Maybe Annabeth. “It looks like you can walk again, so if you want to come down, we can go find Grover.” 

Percy considered. He slowly began to move, sticking one leg over the edge of the cabinet so that he could climb down. Just before his foot touched the counter, Percy’s face turned ashen. He fell backwards in a dead faint. 

I rushed to catch him. It isn’t easy to catch eighty pounds of dead weight and multiple limbs. I caught him, but also managed to bang the back of his head against the countertop of the cabinets next to us. There was a crunch. “Shit!” I cursed. 

Percy whimpered but he didn’t open his eyes again. 

I hauled him to the bed he’d vacated and heaved him onto it. That was significantly easier than catching him. Once he was settled, I checked the back of his head, parting his hair and prodding with my fingers. There was in fact a dent and blood. Again. Dents were bad news. I got the vial of nectar and dropper, opting to give Percy a little more than before since he hit his head. 

Percy didn’t react. Looked like he was out cold again. 

I lifted his shirt to get a look at his abdomen. It was darker than I liked but even as I watched, the bruises faded somewhat as the nectar kicked in. I prodded the back of his head, his hot blood wetting my fingertips. His skull knit back together beneath my touch. I sighed with relief. Now that I was fairly sure he wasn’t going to die, I needed to find Chiron and Grover to find out exactly what happened to Percy. 

I left the Big House and headed for the forest. Chiron was teaching an archery class right now but Grover should be free. Satyrs liked camp better than most places in the area but even they preferred to distance themselves from the buildings at camp. Grover was in the thicket that his family had claimed as their own. He lay down, munching on blackberries and groaning. The fact that he was eating meant he was probably fine. 

“Hey, old friend,” I said as I squeezed into the space. Satyrs didn’t mind the prickles but I wasn’t a fan. I’ve lived in bushes before and I would much rather have a house and a roof over my head. 

Grover immediately stopped groaning. He lifted his head from his nest of moss. “Luke? What are you doing here? Is Percy okay?” 

In an instant, I decided not to say anything about Percy's fall off the cabinets. “He’s healing,” I said. “He woke up and asked me about you and his mom.” 

Grover’s expression fell. His hairy chin quivered. “I’ve been such a lousy friend. Percy deserves better than me.” 

There were a lot of ways to reply to that. Most of them were negative. My feelings toward Grover were complicated due to his part in Thalia’s death. I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue. 

Grover wiped the tears that had begun to fall. He smeared blackberry juice across his cheek. “I’ll be fine. I wasn’t injured too bad.” There were a few bruises visible but otherwise Grover seemed to be telling the truth. He was fine. “Percy was really brave when he fought the Minotaur. I knew he was scared. He hasn’t been right since the field trip with the Kindly One.” 

Dread was a snake that curled around my spine. “What field trip? What Kindly One?” I asked. The Kindly Ones were what we called Furies. If a Fury was after Percy then it had been sent by Hades directly. That alone confirmed for me that Percy was a child of either Zeus or Poseidon. 

A look of shame crossed Grover’s face. “There was a Kindly One at Yancy Academy, pretending to be a teacher. She was so wrapped up in the Mist that we didn’t realize what she was until it was too late. While we were on a field trip to the museum, Mrs. Dodds - that’s what she was calling herself - lured Percy away to kill him. Chiron made it in time to give Percy a sword and Percy killed the Kindly One.” 

This wasn’t the first time that Grover hadn’t been able to scent a monster right under his nose. Angrily, I wondered if his nose was so broken why did they keep sending him out to collect demigods? Not to mention Chiron giving Percy a sword instead of defending the boy himself. Even in that wheelchair, Chiron was good enough at sword fighting that he could have taken her on with little trouble. But no. Chiron had to test Percy’s merit without even a hint of training first. Rage made my vision actually blur. I gestured to Grover to continue. 

Grover sighed. He was so lost in his self pity that he didn’t see my anger. “Chiron said Percy was a natural with the sword. He slayed the Kindly One on his first swing.” Not mentioning that Percy probably wouldn’t have gotten a second swing. Grover’s look of guilt intensified. “Chiron was hoping that the Mist would make Percy forget and he wouldn’t let me tell Percy the truth. But Percy didn’t forget. He’s spent months trying to prove that Mrs. Dodds existed.” 

At first Grover’s words didn’t sink in. But the longer I thought about it, the longer I rolled them over in my head, the clearer it became. Chiron and Grover spent months trying to convince Percy that the Fury had just been in his head. That it and the teacher it pretended to be were figments of Percy’s imagination. Suddenly I understood why Percy acted the way he did. He _didn’t_ trust anyone and he knew - or at least suspected - that everything said to him was a lie. I struggled to get my temper under control. I wanted to kill something. 

For one hot second, I thought about killing Grover. I could wrap my hands around his thin throat and squeeze the life out of him. Who would know? Satyrs couldn’t do autopsies. Chiron wouldn’t care. But...no. Maybe if Grover was more injured from the fight then a sudden death would be believable. But not as he was. 

Grover went back to eating blackberries, totally unaware of what was going on in my head. He wiped his tears away on his shirt, getting blackberry juice on that too. “I feel like such a terrible friend.” 

I bit back my agreement. “What happened to his mom?” 

The look of sadness only deepened. “Sally drove us here. We got in a car accident. It wasn’t her fault. The car was struck by lightning.” This was said with a glance toward the sky. “Then the Minotaur caught up to us. It attacked Sally. Percy wouldn’t cross the border when she was in danger.” 

“Then what happened?” 

“She disappeared in a flash of golden light while the Minotaur was strangling her.” Grover shook his head. “I’ve never seen that happen before.” 

Neither had I. It gave me something to think about. “I had better be getting back to Percy,” I said. “Take care, Grover.” Then I backed out of the thicket. My arms were scratched up by the time I was finally free and there were leaves in my hair. As I walked back to the Big House, I picked them out. 

It was almost noon. My sword fighting class would be starting soon. As the teacher, I couldn’t be late. First I would check on Percy and get something to eat, then I would head over.  
  
  
  


It was a day and a half before I saw Percy again. He tripped walking into cabin eleven. Even though he wasn’t the only one who had tripped on the protruding floorboard, everyone else laughed at him. Percy’s pupils narrowed to pinpricks. I saw the urge to run in his expression. 

Annabeth rolled her eyes behind Percy’s back. Her black eye was healed. “Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven.” 

“Regular or undetermined?” Chris asked. 

Annabeth said, “Undetermined.” 

Everybody groaned. 

Percy took a half step backward. 

That was my cue. I stepped forward. The new camper speech was something I’d prepared years ago, when I realized that my cabin saw the most newcomers and it was better to have a script to follow. “Now, now, campers. That’s what we’re here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there.” 

Percy looked up at me, obviously recognized me as the person who’d been taking care of him earlier. His shoulders were still raised high but his pupils dilated just a little. 

Annabeth said, “Luke is your councilor for now.” 

“For now?” Percy asked, officially speaking more than twenty words. Was he naturally quiet or was it trauma? He did not look at Annabeth - or anyone else - when he asked this, kept his eyes on me. 

“You’re undetermined,” I said patiently. This was also part of the script. “They don’t know what cabin to put you in, so you’re here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers.” As usual when I spoke of my father, a wave of hot rage washed through me and my scars ached. But I was a master of hiding behind masks, and none of that showed. 

Percy looked around, clutched the Minotaur horn tighter in his hands. That wasn’t an unusual response. He looked at me again. “How long will I be here?” His tone didn’t tell me if he meant at Camp Half-Blood or if he meant here in cabin eleven. 

Carefully I said, “Good question. Until you’re determined.” 

“How long will that take?” 

Everyone laughed again. 

Annabeth grabbed Percy’s wrist to drag him out of my cabin like a life-sized doll. 

A look of terror and rage crossed Percy’s face, His whole body tensed. He lifted the Minotaur horn to strike. 

I plucked the horn from Percy’s hand with one hand and with the other, I pried Annabeth’s fingers from Percy’s wrist. “I’ll take him from here, Annabeth. Percy is one of mine, after all.” This was off script. I didn’t normally give the newcomers tours of Camp. Heck, I didn’t even spend time with most of them outside of training and meals because I had so much to do that giving all twenty kids in my cabin one-on-one time was difficult...even though most of them desperately needed it. 

But Percy almost stabbed Annabeth and I couldn’t allow that. Annabeth may have been growing into someone I didn’t particularly like and she may have had a crush on me that made me uncomfortable, but I still loved her as much as I did when she was seven-years-old and I found her in the alley. 

Annabeth opened her mouth to protest but a look from me had her snapping her jaws shut. “Fine,” she sulked. She glared at me and then narrowed her eyes at Percy in appraisal before stalking out of the cabin. I got the sense that in a year or two, Annabeth would stop listening to me completely and then I would have a problem on my hands. 

Once Annabeth was gone, I gave Percy the Minotuar horn back. 

Percy took it with thumb and forefinger, giving it a look like I’d just handed him a dead rat. 

We went outside, leaving my cabin to get up to all sorts of trouble without me there to supervise. I got the feeling that my coca-cola would be gone by the time we got back. “First things first,” I said, “Let’s get you some supplies.” 

Percy said nothing, only trailed after me. His eyes took everything in, darting from place to place and filing away information. The look on his face suggested that Percy wasn’t very impressed with the Camp...and that he didn’t really know why he was here. Normally, kids would be asking questions or demanding answers and I could see that he was curious but he didn’t ask. 

We were halfway to the camp store before I asked, “Is there anything you want to know?” 

A satyr crossed our path, his goat legs white and brown. He glanced at us curiously, then went on his way. 

Percy flinched when he saw the satyr, then he wrinkled his nose. That was a peculiar reaction for someone who called Grover a friend. Percy caught me studying him and looked abashed. “Why don’t we kill them?” 

I raised an eyebrow in surprise. “What do you mean?” 

“The satyrs,” Percy clarified, voice low. “What’s the difference between them and the Minotaur?” 

Oh. Grover had mentioned that they’d kept everything a secret from Percy. I hadn’t thought that included what Grover was. “Well, there are nature spirits and there are monsters. Satyrs are nature spirits. They’re harmless, unless you’re disrespectful and even then, they mostly play pranks like putting mud and bugs in your bed for littering.” I waited until Percy nodded before continuing, “The Minotaur is a monster. Monsters hunt demigods. It isn’t their fault. To them, we smell like a nice, juicy steak.” 

Percy shivered. His eyes were wide again, somewhat distant as though remembering something. When his gaze focused on me, he asked, “How can the Minotaur be alive? Didn’t someone already slay it?” 

“Yes, Theseus slayed the Minotaur. In the old days you could kill a monster once and it would be dead forever. But sometime between then and now, the gods changed things. Monsters no longer have souls so when we slay them, they go to Tartarus to reform. Then they break out of Tartarus and eat demigods.” It was a pretty grim topic. I was still searching for answers about the whole eating demigods thing and why the gods were doing this to the monsters and to us. Pettiness on the gods part, most likely. Someone probably offended them and now we all had to pay. 

At the Camp store, I made Percy wait outside while I went in and got him toiletries and a sleeping bag. These were not items I paid for. Stealing from Camp brought me great joy and since I managed the Camp’s finances, there wasn’t even a paper trail to follow at the end of the year. “These are for you.” 

Percy took them. He searched my face for a long few moments and a debate played out on his features. “Is there a monster that looks like an old woman with leathery wings?” 

It occurred to me that they _still_ hadn’t told Percy he didn’t hallucinate the Fury. “We call them the Kindly Ones,” I explained. “They’re Furies. There are three of them. They work for the highest bidder. Hades has been the highest bidder for a few thousand years.” I led Percy toward the cabins again so that he could put his stuff down. 

Percy made a small noise. 

I glanced behind me and stopped in surprise. 

Tears rolled down Percy’s cheeks. He stared at his feet, didn’t notice that I’d stopped, and walked into me. Percy swiped at his eyes with his sleeves before raising his gaze to meet mine. His face took on a red tint. “I killed a monster? A real monster?” 

I nodded. Kids have cried at me and on me before but now I floundered. Gaslighting wasn’t something I had to deal with often. Chiron liked to say that demigod scent became stronger when a demigod knew more, but that happened to coincide with puberty, which was about the age that powers either manifested or strengthened or were realized for what they were. Hormones made our scents stronger, not knowledge. It was one of the lies he told, but didn’t actually live by. So it surprised me that they’d tried to lie to Percy for so long and about so much. “She was a real monster. And the Minotaur too.” 

“I wasn’t sure,” Percy admitted. 

I stared at him. 

“That she was a monster. I thought maybe…” Percy trailed off. His gaze dropped to his feet. A fresh wave of tears rolled down his cheeks. 

I realized suddenly that Percy thought he might have been a murderer. “Hey,” I put my hands on his shoulders. “You’re not crazy and you’re not a murderer. You killed two monsters and they were real.” 

Percy lifted his face, searched my eyes. His were sea glass green and filled with more sorrow and pain than I’d seen outside of the mirror. 

I pulled him into a hug. Percy barely came up to my sternum; he was so short. So young. Again, I couldn’t help but notice how he smelled like river water meets the ocean. I had a sudden, terrible suspicion that I knew exactly who Percy’s father was...and I was excited by the thought that the prophecy was finally unfolding.  
  
  
  


I woke up to somebody screaming and was out of bed before I’d even figured out which kid it was. 

“Ugh, the Jackson kid.” 

“Shut up, Jackson!” 

“So much for being a hero.” 

“Everybody, shut up,” I spat as I picked my way through the sleeping bags on the floor, trying not to step on anyone or their stuff. I crouched beside Percy, could barely see him in the darkness, and shook his shoulder. “Hey, Percy, wake up, kiddo.” 

Someone snickered at my nickname. 

I growled at them in a wordless command to shut up. 

Percy sat up in his sleeping bag. His eyes were wide, reflecting back what little moonlight there was in a luminescent teal. Sweat glistened on his skin, rolled off him in beads like someone dumped him in the lake. He gasped for every breath, almost hyperventilated. The acrid stench of fear rolled off Percy in waves. “There...there were...huge black dogs.” Percy shuddered. “And their...their faces were...bone.” 

A dream, I wondered, or a memory? No one had said anything about Percy encountering hellhounds before. “There are no hellhounds here,” I said steadily, keeping my voice calm and reassuring. 

Percy fixated his wide, wide eyes on me. They widened so much that I could see the whites on all sides. He opened his mouth but no sounds came out, just harsh panting that became rapider and rapider. He put a hand over his chest. 

I realized suddenly that he _was_ hyperventilating now, having a panic attack. Thankfully, this wasn’t my first rodeo. By the time I talked Percy through it, the sweat had dried on his skin. 

“Finally,” somebody muttered after Percy quieted. 

“I-I’m okay,” Percy whispered. He sank into a horizontal position, wiggling down in his sleeping bag. He pulled the Minotaur horn to his chest. In a few moments, Percy was asleep again. 

I crouched beside him for a few minutes more, watching over him. When I was sure that he wouldn’t be falling back into his dream of hellhounds, I got to my feet and stumbled back into my bed. As though nightmares were contagious, I dreamed of the hellhounds that chased us to Camp Half-Blood and tore Thalia apart. 

My dream was interrupted and I was suddenly standing on the edge of a massive pit the size of a city block. 

**“He’s the one who will bring the bolt to me,”** Kronos said, voice at once booming from the pit and echoing in my own head. 

Was Percy going to join our side? He would be powerful, especially once he got more training. Chiron and Grover set it up so that Percy was perfectly set up to fall into my arms if only by the simple grace that I wasn’t lying to him. “Yes, my lord,” I agreed. 

**“My weak little son must think that Camp Half-Blood is unsafe for him. He must be sent on a quest.”**

Camp Half-Blood was relatively safe if you spent your whole life running from monsters. But it was by no means a safe place. Every year, at least one demigod died in an accident. And one always fell to the hands of another demigod. “What did you have in mind, my lord?” 

**“He dreams of hellhounds,”** Kronos said with cold amusement in his voice. **“Chiron will think that Hades is after young Percy Jackson.”**

I didn’t like it but we were only going to scare Percy. He wouldn’t be hurt. I dipped my head. “Yes, my lord.”  
  
  
  


I tried to stop hazings as often as I could, but I couldn’t be everywhere at once and Clarisse, daughter of Ares, knew that. She snagged Percy from his Ancient Greek lesson while I was attending Chiron’s morning archery class. 

By the time I was done with my archery lesson, Butch came over with the whole story. How Clarisse dragged Percy by his hair to the bathrooms and tried to put his head in the toilet. How the plumbing had gone haywire, soaking everyone in the bathroom except for Percy. How cabin five was gunning for blood because of their embarrassment. 

In the time it took me to find Percy - at cabin eleven in his portion of floor - word had spread around Camp and everyone knew about it. I sat down beside Percy, back to the wall. I offered him a smile. “Tough day?” 

Percy sat with his knees drawn to his chest, chin resting on his arms. His eyes shifted to follow me but he didn’t turn his head. “I don’t belong here,” he said. “I don’t even believe in the gods.” 

I wished it was so easy as not believing in the gods. “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s how we all started. Once you start believing in them? It doesn’t get any easier.” 

Percy looked surprised. He turned his head just enough to study me better. “So your dad is Hermes?” 

Just hearing my dad’s name made my blood boil. I pulled the switchblade from my back pocket and scraped mud off the sole of my sandal. “Yeah, Hermes.” 

“The wing-footed messenger guy.” 

“That’s him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That’s why you’re here, enjoying cabin eleven’s hospitality. Hermes isn’t picky about who he sponsors.” 

Hurt flashed across Percy’s face. “You ever meet your dad?” 

“Once.” 

Percy waited. 

I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. The campers here, they’re mostly good people. After all, we’re extended family, right? We take care of each other.” Which was perhaps not the best thing to say after he’d been hazed. 

The look Percy leveled at me said as much. He ran his tongue over his teeth. 

“What happened to your tooth?” I asked. “It wasn’t like that when you came in.” 

The red tint of a blush came back but Percy’s expression wasn’t embarrassed; he was angry. “That girl, _Annabeth,_ ” Percy said with venom in his voice, “shoved a spoon in my mouth and broke my tooth. That’s why I punched her.” 

“That’s fair,” I said, even though it wasn’t. Annabeth’s black eye healed overnight. Chipped teeth weren't something nectar and ambrosia fixed. The divine food of the gods had a weird hang up about teeth so if they chipped, cracked, rotted, or were knocked out, that was it. I’d have to remind Annabeth of this. 

Percy tugged on his shoelace. “She was asking me weird questions. And she said some weird stuff today.” Percy ran his tongue over his teeth again. “Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being ‘Big Three’ material. Then Annabeth...twice, she said I might be ‘the one.’ She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?” 

I folded my knife and put it away to buy myself time to think. “Whenever demigods go on quests, we get prophecies. Just little things to tell us what to expect. But sometimes there are prophecies foretold that aren’t little and the fate of the world hangs in the balance.” 

Percy’s face paled. 

“Two years ago I was sent on a quest to the Gardens of Hesperides. It went very, very badly. Since then, Chiron hasn’t allowed anymore quests. Annabeth’s been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He’d had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn’t tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn’t destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until...somebody special came to camp.” 

“Somebody special?” Percy asked in a tone of voice that meant he thought she was stupid for assuming it could be him. 

“Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she’s been waiting for,” I said. I paused and considered. He was going to find out anyway and I couldn’t stand lying to him. “We think _you_ might be the one from the prophecy.” 

Percy stared at me like I’d simultaneously lost my mind and stabbed him with the switchblade in my back pocket. Something in his eyes crumpled. This was the face of someone who had been lied to too much and thought he was being lied to again. 

The anger that flooded through me was hot and made my bones shake. I wasn’t angry at Percy, but at everyone around him. Why were they lying to him? What was the point in keeping him ignorant of his own fate? He was obviously suffering because of it. This was just cruel. I put a hand on Percy’s shoulder. “The prophecy is about a child of the eldest three gods. We call them the Big Three. There’s Zeus, the god of thunder, Hades, the god of the dead, and Poseidon, the god of the sea.” 

Percy put his face in his arms. “Mom always said that dad was lost at sea.” His voice was muffled and miserable. 

Sally Jackson knew who Poseidon was and she never told Percy. I tried to wrap my mind around it. Most mortals didn’t know that they’d had sex with a divine being. When they did know - like Annabeth’s dad, and Thalia’s mom, and my mom - they always told their demigod children who the god or goddess was that sired them. Why did Sally keep it a secret from Percy? “Well, I don’t know for sure, but I think there’s a good chance your dad is the god of the sea.” I couldn’t decide how Percy’s potential parentage made me feel. Part of me wanted a little bit of Thalia back and part of me would have been even more furious with Zeus if he’d sired another child. 

“Does this mean I’m moving out of cabin eleven?” He asked without raising his head. 

I gave his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Not yet. He’s got to claim you first.” 

Percy didn’t respond.  
  
  
  


That night, at the sing-a-long, I pulled Annabeth aside and gave her a scathing lecture about how to treat other people. 

Annabeth looked annoyed. She always looked that way when Percy was brought up. “He’s such a loser,” she spat. “He _can’t_ be the one from the prophecy. They must have gotten it wrong.” 

“He isn’t a loser,” I snapped. “Demigods have to be united. We need each other, Annabeth. Our survival depends on cooperation. What if Thalia and I decided _you_ were a loser and left you to fend for yourself?” It wasn’t often that I brought Thalia’s name into an argument. She was something of an ace up my sleeve for when Annabeth was being especially cold toward someone else. 

Annabeth’s glare softened but her eyes were still cold steel. She glanced away, toward the bonfire, and seemed to notice that we were out of its circle of light together. The spike of sweetness in her scent combined with the rose pink blush on her cheeks told me exactly where her thoughts had gone. “I’m sorry, Luke,” Annabeth said, voice turned cloyingly sweet. She stepped closer to me. 

I longed for the days before Annabeth hit puberty, back when she was an innocent little kid who worshipped the ground Thalia walked on. I’ve always wanted Annabeth to love me...but not like this. “Go roast marshmallows with your cabin, Annabeth,” I said, a slight growl to my voice that told her I meant it. 

Annabeth’s eyes flashed but only for a second. She was twelve, too young to know what she actually wanted from me. So she backed down, rejoined the other kids around the bonfire.  
  
  
  


Even though I was pretty sure who Percy’s godly parent was, I had to run him through his paces and give him a chance at every camp activity. All of the campers participated in everything, though all of them were best at their own parents _thing._

Percy wasn’t faster than a nymph. He was a lousy shot with a bow and arrow. Wrestling was a disaster. 

By afternoon, we’d discovered that Percy was very good at canoeing. 

“You’ll be good in the canoe races,” I said encouragingly. 

“How often do you have those?” Percy asked, sounding uninterested. He spun his canoe in a slow circle, as though caught in a whirlpool. The day of failures appeared to be weighing on him. 

“Once a week.” 

Percy sighed, loud and dramatic. 

I pulled my canoe up beside him and got caught in his whirlpool. “There’s one more thing I want you to try today.” 

“Might as well,” Percy said reluctantly. 

We went back to shore and put the canoes away. Then we hiked to the stables. 

While we walked, I considered how to best handle Percy’s obvious depression. I could be honest with him all I wanted, give him a little extra one-on-one time than I gave anyone else, but undoing what Chiron and Grover had done would take twice as long as it took to break Percy. What little bits of information I’d gleaned from him and Grover told me that Percy thought the entire school had been playing an elaborate prank on him...and then some of them had done just that. Combined with his mother keeping his heritage and father a secret from him his whole life… I wondered if I _could_ fix him. Especially when everyone was actively working against me. 

At the stables, Butch and Silena were with the pegasi. They stood side by side, chatting while they brushed the pegasi’s coats until they gleamed like precious metals. Silena noticed us walking up and waved. She came over to greet us. “Hi, Luke. Hi, Percy.” 

“Hi, Silena,” I said. “We’re here for a riding lesson.” 

Beside me, Percy went stiff. I could smell the acrid, bitter reek of fear emanating from Percy. Sweat stained his shirt beneath his arms and his pupils had narrowed to tiny black pinpricks. 

“Are you afraid of horses, Percy?” Silena asked gently. She shot me a sympathetic look over Percy’s head. She could smell his fear too. 

“No,” Percy said, tone distracted. He pressed a hand to his temple like he had a headache. His gaze slid to me. “Can they talk?” Referring to the pegasi. 

I cocked my head, appraising him. That was an odd question to ask. “Only to each other,” I said carefully. I didn’t mention Poseidon. There was no doubt in my mind that Percy was his son but I didn’t know enough about Poseidon’s children to know if they could understand horses. 

Percy studied me studying him and then slowly nodded. A little piece of his sanity visibly crumbled away. He lowered his hand. “It’s probably a good thing they can’t talk,” he said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “They’d probably be loud and annoying.” 

Silena looked even more confused. “Well, let's go for a ride. Have you ever ridden a horse?” 

Percy shook his head. 

“It’s easy.” Silena led Percy away from me, toward the grazing pegasi. She was a good teacher, the best camper with the pegasi. Butch was second to her. 

I used the time to catch up with Butch. We had no idea who his parent was, but suspected it was one of the minor goddesses. He was one of the ones who arrived this year for the first time and stayed in cabin eleven. I was trying to recruit him to Kronos’ army. After recruiting demigods to Kronos’ side for two years, I was beginning to develop a script for this too. 

Butch was one of those kids with a place to go home to. His mortal dad loved him and took good care of him. His scent of wet clover and cold air wasn’t very strong so he didn’t attract many monsters. To be perfectly honest, Butch shouldn’t have been at Camp Half-Blood at all. He was one of those demigods who could coast under the radar but somehow he had ended up here and his arrival painted a big target on his back. 

“Don’t you want to know who your mother is?” I asked him. 

Butch hesitated, considering. He stroked the silver pegasus’ fur, picked some straw from between its feathers. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? My dad is enough for me.” 

“It’s good that you have support at home,” I said, stroking the pegasus’ neck. “Does it bother you that she brought you here and now you’re a prime target for monsters?” 

Butch considered this again. “It did. Until _he_ showed up.” This was said with a jerk of his chin toward the sky. “Whatever happened to him, seems a lot worse than what happened to me. I haven’t even fought a monster outside of Camp. But he’s got the big ones coming after him.” Butch’s pale face darkened with a blush. “Don’t tell him I said that.” 

I glanced toward the sky, where Percy and Silena were flying together. “My lips are sealed,” I promised. Part of me thought I was the only one who noticed or cared that Percy was having a heck of a time with it. But if other demigods noticed and it scared them, maybe I could use that to help turn them against the Olympians.  
  
  
  


Thursday afternoon, four days after Percy arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I called cabin eleven to the arena for a sword-fighting lesson. The other cabins had so few campers that I could generally teach two or three at one time but my cabin was so big that we got our own day, with just us. 

I set the kids against straw-stuffed dummies, stabbing and slashing. This way the new ones wouldn’t hurt each other - yet - and I could get a feel for what Percy knew. I walked among them, correcting posture and technique, until I came to Percy. 

Percy did exactly what I told him to do and his reflexes were good...but the sword wasn’t balanced. He kept shifting it in his hands, looking frustrated. 

We went through every sword in the armory but they were all too heavy, too long, or too light. “Sorry, kid. Just choose the one that feels the least wrong and I’ll see what I can do for the future.” 

Percy nodded glumly. 

After making them slash and hack at the dummies for another fifteen minutes, I paired the kids off into groups of two. “I’ll be your partner, Percy, since this is your first time.” 

“Good luck,” Connor said to Percy, an impish smile on his face. “Luke’s the best swordsman in the last three hundred years.” 

“Maybe he’ll go easy on me,” Percy said without conviction. He stared at the sword in his hands like he hated it. 

Connor snorted. He paired up with Travis and they began a vicious attack on each other. 

I went through a set of beginner moves - thrusts, parries, shield blocks - and I didn’t go easy on Percy. My sword and shield connected, battering and bruising him. I wasn’t afraid of bruising him up a little, but I was careful not to cut him. “Keep your guard up, Percy,” I said and then whapped him in the ribs with the flat of my sword. “No, not that far up!” _Whap!_ “Lunge!” _Whap!_ “Now, back!” _Whap!_

Percy wasn’t slow, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop me and didn’t have the experience to know how. My initial suspicion that the one slash Percy used to kill the Fury really was his only chance, and a lucky strike at that, seemed to be correct. Sweat dripped from him, soaking his t-shirt and plastering his black hair to his forehead. His hands shook, not used to holding a sword and shield. But Percy’s sea green eyes were full of fire. I think it was the first time that I’d seen him looking anything other than afraid and sad. 

“Let’s take a break,” I said to him. Louder, I called, “Everyone break!” 

Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. 

I got a cup of ice water and poured it over my head. Sparring under the hot sun was, well, hot, but Chiron refused to let me move my classes to morning so we were stuck with afternoon heat. 

Percy watched me, looking very thirsty. He got a cup of ice water and poured it over his head like I had. Percy perked up, losing the tremble in his arms and the stoop to his shoulders. He shifted on his toes, refreshed, ready to go again. His eyes were bright. 

Huh. Water rejuvenated him. I tucked that observation into my mental filing cabinet. The desire to know more, to test the limits of this apparent power, made my blood sing. Maybe he would be a challenge now. Maybe I would get to see how this scrawny little kid slayed both a Fury and the Minotaur. After a five minute break, I shouted, “Okay, everybody circle up!” As they rushed to do what I said, I added, “If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo.” I couldn’t suppress my smile. 

Everyone knew what a demo meant. It meant I was going to show them a new move by kicking someone’s ass. They gathered around, grinning and jostling each other in excitement. I explained the move to everyone, what I was going to do and how it worked. “This is difficult,” I stressed. “I’ve had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique.” 

The sword fighting instructor before me had taught it to me when I was fourteen. Her name had been Hunter and she was a daughter of Nemesis. She died before the end of that summer, crushed beneath the rack of a giant deer while on a quest. 

I demonstrated the move in exaggerated slow motion. The sword clattered out of Percy’s hand. 

He hadn’t tried to defend himself or move away. Percy’s eyes were focused on my movements. He picked up the sword and readied himself for it again. There was something about the look in his eyes that made a thrill go down my spine. If I could train Percy, he would make a good fighter. I just knew it. 

“Now in real time,” I said, meeting his eyes. “We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?” 

Percy nodded. 

I lunged at him. 

Percy countered every attack. He stepped forward, tried a thrust of his own. 

I blocked him easily but it excited me that he’d even tried to attack me first. I thrust my sword at him, aiming to smack him in the ribs again. 

Percy disarmed me. His blade hit the base of mine and he twisted, putting his whole weight into a downward thrust. _Clang._

My sword rattled against the stones. The tip of Percy’s blade was an inch from my chest, almost brushing the fabric of my t-shirt. My heart raced like it wanted to explode from my chest and impale itself on the sword. 

No one said a word. I’ve never been bested in any fight, ever. 

The battlelust drained from Percy’s eyes, making them look like glassy marbles. “Um, sorry,” he muttered, lowering his sword. 

“Sorry?” I grinned. “By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!” 

He stuttered out a few protests, something about being tired. His arms trembled again and the stoop was back. I thought that I could draw the excitement back out of him but it remained firmly trapped within. The moment that my sword hit his, Percy’s sword went skidding across the floor. 

“Beginner’s luck?” Travis asked, voice unsure. If it was luck, then someone would have had to spin Percy’s luck for him. No beginner was that lucky. 

It was somewhat disappointing that he lost, but as I studied him, I saw that the water had evaporated from his skin. He looked a little ashen. The water rejuvenated him but only for as long as it was on his skin. Interesting. “Maybe,” I said as I wiped the sweat from my brow. “But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword…” 

Percy wouldn’t meet my eye. 

I put an arm around his shoulders. “Alright, everyone, clean up and get your sweaty butts to the showers. No one is allowed into the cabin until they’ve showered.” 

They hurried to do what I said, tossing their shields into a pile and putting their swords away themselves. 

As he passed by me with an armful of shields, Connor said, “That includes you, Luke.” 

“Yeah,” Travis chimed in, carrying the rest of the shields. “Not all of us are attracted to the smell of sweaty men.” This was said with a side-eye to Percy, who was still tucked against my side and didn’t seem to care that I reeked. 

When the Stolls were in the shed and everyone else was at the showers, Percy looked up at me. His face was tinted red with a blush. “You do smell like...sweaty man,” Percy’s blush deepened. “But it’s...clean sweat.” 

I smiled and let go of him to put my sword away. “Glad to know I don’t smell as bad as they say.” 

Percy followed me, still holding his own sword and shield. “Luke?” 

“Hmm?” 

“You don’t smell bad,” Percy began hesitantly. “But you do smell…” he trailed off, thinking. While he thought about it, he hung up his sword and shield. “I don’t know what it is. But you always smell like it and no one else does.” There was a bit of a question there. 

This didn’t surprise me in the slightest. “Most demigods have heightened senses,” I explained. “That includes our sense of smell. It helps us to find or avoid monsters and gods and each other. Each demigod has a unique scent, though sometimes we have overlap. Have you noticed that the Stolls sort of smell like me?” 

Percy nodded. 

“Right. That’s sort of our base scent that we inherited from Hermes. It lets people know that we’re his sons.” I led Percy back outside and stood in the arena with him. “Do you recognize it?” 

After a moment of hesitation, Percy leaned forward and sniffed me. He looked absolutely mortified but most demigods raised by mortals did. Smelling other people was rude to mortals and they did everything they could to hide their own scents. Percy met my eye and shook his head. 

“It’s hot candle wax,” I told him. 

The confusion cleared from Percy’s face. As soon as I gave a name to it, he knew. The confusion was back a minute later. “But you and the Stolls still smell different. I mean, I can smell it on them too, but it’s...different.” 

“Right. So like I said, that’s a base scent. The next layer that we demigods have is actually one that we pick up via proximity to...things.” I saw that I’d lost him. “I’m around leather polish a lot because I take care of the armor and sword grips so I’ve picked up that scent. Connor and Travis are around fireworks and explosives pretty often, so they smell like the gunpowder and sulfur that’s used in firework mixes.” 

Understanding bloomed on Percy’s face. “What do I smell like?” 

“Like the place where a river empties into the ocean,” I said without hesitation or bothering to double check. 

The blush came back, spreading up to the tips of Percy’s ears. “That’s it?” 

I nodded. “For now. The second scent comes with puberty.” I smiled. “Puberty will be exciting. You’ll be giving off all sorts more pheromones.” I directed Percy to the showers before he could ask more questions about what demigod puberty was like. “Now go wash off the sweat, Percy.” 

Percy went but not without looking over his shoulder, expression saying that we were going to come back to this topic.  
  
  
  


Once everyone was tucked into bed, I gathered my stuff and went to the showers. My cabinmates liked to tease me about how often I showered and when I showered, but I always let it roll off me like water off a duck's feathers. There was a reason that I liked to shower alone. 

Despite being past moon high, aka curfew, the harpies didn’t bother me. After living here for five years, the harpies and I had an understanding. I was the only camper allowed to move around after moon high and before sunrise without being attacked. 

In the shower block, I locked the door on habit. I took my time stripping out of my sweat stained clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Normally I don’t look at my body and today was no exception. 

I chose a shower head, turned the water on. It rained down cold onto the tiles. In a few minutes it heated up enough to steam. There was limited hot water at Camp Half-Blood, only available in the dead of night once the ancient and massive water heater had time to replenish it. This, and the solitude, were the best reasons to shower after moon high. 

It wasn’t until I was rinsing the conditioner from my hair that I noticed the vine peeking out of the drain. My heartbeat quickened. For most people this would be a horror show. But my cock was stiffening with arousal. I’d been intending to take my time jacking off; now it looked like I wouldn’t have to. 

The vine grew larger, tendrils moving toward my leg. It touched my skin and curled, still growing, up my right leg, coming to a stop around my thigh. A second vine grew and curled around my left leg. The room filled with the scent of crushed grapes. Fingertips touched my back, trailed up to my shoulders and squeezed. “There’s my favorite camper,” Dionysus purred in my ear. 

We both knew he was lying. Dionysus’ favorite campers were his twin sons who arrived at Camp last year. I was disgustingly jealous over them and pissed off that I cared so much. I did not say he was my favorite god, even though it would have been close to the truth. Instead, I turned my head to kiss him. 

Dionysus’ mouth tasted like wine. 

“Hey,” I said, pulling back. Dionysus put himself together for me, looking beautiful and androgenous. “I have capture the flag tomorrow. I can’t get drunk.” One kiss and I could already feel the narcotic effects of kissing the god of wine. 

Dionysus appraised me, annoyance in the set of his brows. I’ve never protested getting drunk before. That was a mistake on my part because he wasn’t used to hearing _no_ from me. At least not when it came to this. 

I reached around, grabbed his hip to draw him closer to me. I made my voice younger, pleading to him like I used to when I was fourteen and just wanted to know that _somebody_ loved me. “Please, D.” Shame and self-loathing roiled through me. My cock was hard as ever. 

Dionysus pressed against me. I was the tallest person in camp but he was slightly taller because all gods had massive egos. He was hot against my back, skin like velvet against mine. His cock pressed against my ass. “It isn’t like you to want to stay in your own head, cub.” 

I hated that he was right. I kissed him again to make him shut up. It worked. 

While Dionysus kissed me deeply, the vines spread my legs.  
  
  
  


I was still nursing a headache from my late night rendezvous with Dionysus when Annabeth showed up. The god made me feel so good but sex with him always came with a hangover. 

“I’ve secured our alliances,” Annabeth said, slamming her palms on the table. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, which meant she was scheming. 

I barely looked up from my paperwork. It wasn’t tax season yet but I liked to keep a monthly record of all transactions and it was that time of the month. “Good. What allies did you secure?” 

Annabeth told me but I only listened with half an ear. Until she got to Percy. “-going to station Percy by the stream. He’ll be out of the way.” 

I looked up, blinked at Annabeth. “Alone?” 

Annabeth nodded. “I can’t spare anyone else to babysit him,” she sniffed. Her gray eyes showed annoyance and...mischief? Something was going on that I didn’t know about. “You’ll make a play for the flag.” Annabeth stated this as a fact. We’d been playing together long enough that it _was_ a fact. 

I studied her for a few long moments, wishing I could pick her brain and find out what she had planned for Percy aside from making him stand there. Hopefully it wouldn’t interrupt my plans. Or hurt him. “Sure. Does everyone else know what they’re doing?” 

Annabeth’s cheeks turned pink. “I wanted to confirm with you first.” 

“Okay.” I dropped my gaze back down to the paperwork. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t good at numbers and this was someone else’s responsibility. Didn’t I have enough to do already? On days like this, it felt like I was the one running the camp. 

Annabeth hovered for a few more moments. “Bye, Bird Brain,” she said and ran away. 

I waited ten minutes before picking up the paperwork and putting it back in its file. I took it all to the Big House and dropped it off in Chiron’s office. Then I hiked up Half-Blood Hill to Thalia’s pine tree. For a few moments I stood there beside the massive tree that used to be my only friend. “I’m doing this for us,” I whispered as I touched her branches. 

The wind rustled the branches of the pine. I took that as a good sign...even though I knew that there was nothing left of Thalia in this tree. Not really. 

A flicker of movement from the corner of my eye made me turn to look across the border. 

On the other side of the border stood a hellhound as tall as a horse. The hellhound’s fur was shaggy and black. It would have looked like a mastiff if not for the size and the way its muzzle stretched too long. Two-thirds of the long muzzle were exposed bone. It’s eyes glowed red like the coals of a fire. The monster watched me. 

“Who sent you?” I asked. 

_“Kronos,”_ the hellhound said in a voice that was hoarse and unaccustomed to human speech. Its tail wagged, not like a dog but like a cat flicking its tail. 

The voice was horrifying, the sound of nightmares. I forced myself not to remember the terror of being hunted by dozens of these monsters, to not remember the sound their teeth made cracking Thalia’s bones. I took a deep breath and the scent of rotten meat and dog filled my nostrils. An inkling of terror slid down my spine like ice water. “Do you know why you’re here?” 

The hellhound panted with excitement. _“Percy...Jackson,”_ it said in its nightmare voice. 

“Your job is to scare him. Don’t hurt him or anyone else,” I said, projecting more confidence into my voice than I felt. My knees felt weak. “Understood?” 

_“Understood,”_ the hellhound growled. It was barely a word, something closer to a growl than any human language. 

I didn’t like this, didn’t want to invite the hellhound into Camp Half-Blood. This place was flawed but I didn’t want any demigods hurt. Yet...Kronos promised that Percy would only be scared, not hurt. I would just keep an eye on Percy during the game. Except Annabeth wanted me to capture the stupid flag and she was going to leave Percy alone...there would be no backup in case the hellhound really did attack him with the intent to kill. But Percy slayed the Minotuar _and_ a Fury. Percy could handle a little hellhound, right? “I, Luke Castellan, give you permission to enter camp.” 

The hellhound took a step forward and then another, crossing the boundary line like it wasn’t even there. _“Tonight,”_ the hellhound promised as it dissolved into the shadows of Thalia’s pine tree. 

Thalia’s tree felt tainted suddenly, so did this whole area. I forced myself to stay on the hill beside Thalia’s pine, laying down in the grass and staring up at the sky. It was normal for me to spend a little time up here every day. After a while, my heart rate slowed to a normal pace and heat returned to my limbs. I fell asleep there on the hill. 

Kronos’ voice echoed in my dreams, **“Do not disappoint me, Luke.”**  
  
  
  


Playing capture the flag was something I’d done every single Friday of every single summer since I was fourteen. It was, in a word, boring. I didn’t care about the flag or winning and I’d been here for so long that I knew all of the strategies. Every single day was just more of the same. 

The only thing that made this one interesting was that there was a hellhound loose in our forest. I hadn’t seen it since inviting it into Camp and that made me nervous. 

Percy looked nervous too, more so than usual, as though he sensed something was going to happen tonight. Then he was trekking off to the stream and I was racing in the opposite direction. 

It was an easy win, something I could do on autopilot, but something kept nagging at the back of my mind. It wasn’t just the hellhound that was missing; I didn’t see any of the Ares kids who were supposed to be protecting their flag. Since they didn’t come across the border back into their territory, I could only assume that they didn’t reach our flag. And I was worried about Percy. 

My teammates had just set me down again when we heard it; a howl that ripped through the forest. It echoed off trees that felt unfamiliar and unfriendly even though I’ve known them all my life. The shadows seemed to deepen. 

The campers cheering died instantly. 

Chiron shouted, _“Stand ready! My bow!”_

I found the hellhound, standing on an outcropping of rock above the creek. It looked straight down at Percy...and Annabeth. My heart squeezed in my chest, the air pushed from my lungs. They looked so tiny beneath the gaze of the monster. I couldn’t let it hurt her. Or Percy. It couldn’t hurt either of them. What had I been thinking? What was I thinking? Even if it just leapt down onto them, the hellhound was so huge it would break ribs. 

“Percy, run!” Annabeth shouted. She tried to step in front of Percy. 

The hellhound soared over her. They were so close that it shouldn’t have been able to miss her, but it did. Paws the size of dinner plates knocked Percy backward, razor-sharp claws ripping through Percy’s armor. Before it could sink its teeth into Percy’s throat, forty arrows sprouted from the hellhound’s neck. It fell dead at Percy’s feet. 

I saw Percy’s back rising and falling with harsh breaths. I ran to him, and was there second to Chiron. Percy’s armor was split wide open, chest soaked with blood. Looking at it made my own chest ache. 

_“Di immortales!”_ Annabeth said. “That’s a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don’t...they’re not supposed to…” Her face was pale white in the moonlight. Her eyes wide as saucers of milk. 

“Someone summoned it,” Chiron said, voice and expression grim. “Someone inside the camp.” 

Clarisse yelled, “It’s all Percy’s fault! Percy summoned it.” 

“Be quiet, child,” Chiron scolded. 

I shot her a glare that said she’d better shut her stupid mouth. 

Clarisse looked abashed. Her spear was broken in half. I noticed that several of her siblings had dented helmets and were staying well away from Percy. Did they attack him during the game? 

“You’re wounded,” Annabeth said to Percy. “Quick, Percy, get in the water.” 

“I’m okay,” Percy tried to insist. He swayed on his feet, brown face looking ashy as the blood drained from his body. 

“No, you’re not,” Annabeth said fiercely. She shoved Percy toward the water. “Chiron, watch this.” Her tone of voice had turned breathy with excitement. She had found her chosen one and she knew it without a doubt. 

Percy stepped backward into the creek, barely able to raise his sword to push her away. The bloody wound on Percy’s chest knit back together, skin healing over to smooth white scar tissue. Above his head was a glowing green light in the shape of a trident, spinning and gleaming. It made Percy’s eyeshine light up the same color. Percy looked up as the trident faded. He looked very tired. 

“Your father,” Annabeth murmured. “This is _really_ not good.” 

“It is determined,” Chiron announced. 

I sank to my knees, keeping my eyes on Percy. It was as I’d suspected. Around me, everyone did the same. It was the one and only time that any of us would ever kneel for him. And it was only because of who his father was. Only a child of the Big Three was treated with so much respect. 

“Poseidon,” Chiron said. “Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God.” 

There was a moment of silence. Then I stood up and everyone else did the same. “Put the gear away, get your butts in the showers, and go to bed.” 

The campers groaned. They were all hyped up from the game and from the excitement of the hellhound. No one was particularly surprised that Percy was a child of the Big Three. 

Chiron gave me an amused look. “I will take it from here, Luke. Look after Percy, would you? I worry about who could have summoned it. I know you’ll keep him safe.” 

It felt like one of Chiron’s arrows going straight through my heart. “I’ll take care of him,” I said and turned to Percy. 

Percy still stood in the stream, watching us. Without the light of the trident over his head, his eyes darkened to inky pools. When it was just the two of us in the clearing, Percy said, “You were right, Luke.” Percy’s voice was dull. He didn’t blink. 

“I know. I’m sorry.” I wadded into the creek beside him, peeled back his ripped shirt so that I could make sure his chest was healed. It was, which was another tidbit about him that I tucked away in my mental filing cabinet. “Is that the only place it got you?” 

Percy nodded. “The Ares cabin ganged up on me.” 

If I’d been paying closer attention, I would have known to expect Clarisse to exact some misplaced revenge on Percy for not being a good little victim. But I’d been preoccupied with other things and it hadn’t even occurred to me. Stupid. I was getting careless. I was careful not to let my annoyance at myself show on my face. “I saw the dents in their helmets and Clarisse’s broken spear. Looks like you gave them one heck of a fight.” Gingerly, I draped an arm over Percy’s shoulders. 

Percy leaned against me. We walked out of the creek and he almost collapsed, legs giving out beneath him. 

I hauled him back onto his feet, shifted my arm from his shoulders to around his waist. “Whoa. Are you okay?” 

“Annabeth set me up.” Percy swallowed audibly. “She used me as bait for the Ares cabin.” His head lolled against my chest and he closed his eyes. He still walked, one foot in front of the other, with me but Percy looked almost asleep. “I think she wanted to see who my dad was too and that’s why she put me by the stream. So that I would use it to defend myself like in the bathrooms.” 

_Or,_ I thought grimly, _so that the Ares kids would hurt Percy and he would heal himself with the water._

By the time we got to the armory, no one else was there. They’d dumped their armor and swords and raced for the showers as usual, to be the first to get hot water. Their patterns were like clockwork. I sat Percy down on a bench in the armory. His fingers were still curled around the sword hilt; I had to actually pry them open to put the sword away. Next, I unbuckled the straps of his breastplate and pulled it over his head. Then I knelt and tugged off his shin guards. 

Percy sat with his head tipped back, eyes open to slits. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the past few hours. A quick shower to get clean and then right into bed for him. “Luke?” 

“Yeah?” I stood up to pull my own armor off, relishing in the cool air against the places the armor covered. 

“Do you think Annabeth summoned the hellhound?” 

I twisted around to look at him, shocked by the question. “Do you?” 

His eyes were still slits, but he’d gone tense. “I don’t know.” 

There was a choice to be made here. When Percy got here and I heard how much everyone lied to him, I told myself that I wasn’t going to do the same. Over the past week, even when I didn’t lie to him, sometimes I still had to watch pieces of him crumble away like sand beneath the beating of the tide. 

Percy closed his eyes entirely. He sighed, all of the tension going out of him. “I just want to know why somebody wants me dead that badly, Luke.” 

I had the strangest feeling that somehow Percy knew it was me. I still hadn’t decided what to say to him when I walked over and hauled him back onto his feet. 

Percy slid his arms around my neck and opened his eyes. They didn’t glow in the dim yellow light of the armory, but they looked like still ponds. I could feel his heart pounding between our shirts. 

“I don’t think somebody wants you dead, Percy,” I heard myself saying. I could not look away from those eyes that seemed to compel honesty from me. “I think it’s...more complicated than that. I...I don’t think...you were supposed to get hurt.” It occurred to me that if I could feel Percy’s heart pounding, he could probably feel mine too. I slid my hands up to his wrists, intending to unlock his arms from around my neck and put some distance between us. 

“It would have killed me.” 

“I’d have killed it first.” 

Percy looked into my eyes and slowly shook his head. “You were too slow to stop it. But I think you believe that.” He closed his eyes and suddenly became a deadweight. “I’m so tired.” 

I barely kept Percy from hitting his head on the bench. I wasn’t sure how many times somebody could hit their head and not scramble their brains but I didn’t want to find out with Percy. “A shower and then we’ll go back to the cabin.” 

Percy hummed or maybe groaned. He got his feet back underneath him and walked with me to the showers. 

My half-brother, Travis, and son of Apollo, Michael Yew, were making out naked on one of the counters. 

“Travis! Michael! Get your butts in bed before the harpies eat you,” I spat at them. _Horny little gremlins,_ I thought as though I hadn’t been having sex in here last night. 

Michael jumped back, surprised. His face turned bright red as he quickly covered himself with a towel. “Uh, sorry, Luke.” I’ve never seen someone get dressed so fast. 

Travis moved slower and shot me a Cheshire Cat grin. “Bye Luke, bye sea spawn.” He said on the way out. 

I doubted that they would actually go back to their cabins but at least they weren’t here. 

Percy said, “I didn’t know they were together.” 

“They’ve been on again, off again since they were thirteen,” I said. 

“Looks like they’re on again,” Percy mumbled. He tugged off his clothes, movements sluggish. His shirt was ruined...unless the Aphrodite kids could do something with it. I didn’t have high hopes. Percy turned the shower on and stood beneath the water. 

Even though I was sticky with sweat, I didn’t join Percy in the showers. I sat on the counter, holding his ruined shirt, trying to decide if it could be saved. It would probably be easier to steal him a new one. “I’ll be right back, okay? I’m gonna go get you a new shirt.” 

Percy grunts. 

So I made a run to the Big House, going into the basement through a window instead of risking running into Dionysus and Chiron. While I was down there, I decided that Percy could do with a spare outfit, so I stole him a new shirt and a whole other outfit. I was in and out in less than five minutes and gone from Percy’s side for less than fifteen. 

Percy didn’t seem to have moved at all from where he stood under the spray. 

“Percy?” I set his clothes on the counter. 

Percy didn’t answer. 

“Percy?” I said a little louder. 

No response. 

I frowned and walked over to him. His eyes were closed, face tipped up to the spray. As I looked at him, I realized that he’d fallen asleep standing up. “Now that takes some skill,” I muttered. I turned the water off. 

It was like scaring a cat. Percy jumped and his shoulders raised. His eyes went big as saucers. Then he saw it was me and his hackles lowered. 

“Your clothes are on the counter,” I told him. 

Percy hurried over to them. As he crossed the bathroom, the water fell from his skin and evaporated from his hair so that by the time he reached his clothes, Percy was completely dry. 

I was learning a lot about Poseidon’s demigod children...and quickly. Camp Half-Blood has never had a child of Poseidon. The last one was French and lived on that side of the world. Looking at what past demigods did wasn’t as useful as you’d think because they were basically pretty, hard to kill mortals. They didn’t have powers like we did. In fact, compared to the demigods of the past, we were so overpowered that if modern mortals knew about us, they would call us gods. Inbreeding was normally a bad thing but when your blood is more divine than mortal, it was actually a bonus. 

For Percy to be as strong as he was, with such a wide range of powers, Poseidon would have had to have been fucking Percy’s ancestors for thousands of years. There was probably an unbroken line of demigod children sired by him. And gods tended to be drawn to certain bloodlines, so there was no telling who else’s DNA was mixed in. 

Percy almost fell asleep getting dressed. His jaws split in a huge yawn. 

I escorted Percy to his sleeping bag. While I was in the cabin, I noted that Travis was curled up with Connor on their bunk, as per usual. Good. 

Percy wiggled into his sleeping bag and immediately fell asleep. 

I went to sleep, skipping a shower for tonight. It took almost no time to fall asleep. The very second that I sensed Kronos’ presence in my dreams, I snapped. “You said it wouldn’t hurt Percy.” 

**“Accidents happen,”** Kronos said dismissively. The temperature in my dream dropped until goosebumps rose on my arms. In real life, I trembled beneath my blanket. **“They will send him on a quest now. He will deliver the bolt to me.”**

I shifted uneasily. When Kronos first said that there was someone we could manipulate into delivering the bolt to him, I’d been all for it. That was before I met Percy and before I had time to think through the implications of such a thing. “And how exactly do you plan on him doing that?” 

**“You will charm the shoes that your father gave you,”** Kronos explained. The more that he explained, the less I liked what he was saying. It wasn’t just that the plan had so many elements, all dependent on everyone playing their part exactly, it was that 

“You’re going to drag him down to Tartarus?” 

**“He resists me in his dreams. He will not resist me there.”**

“I’m not doing this,” I said. 

Something about the cold darkness that surrounded me turned amused. **“Won’t you?”**

The nightmares started in earnest.  
  
  
  


In the morning, Chiron came to take Percy to cabin three. Percy had been elevated to the status of counselor…but only of himself. 

It irked me to have Percy taken away. The kid still had nightmares and now that I knew what Kronos wanted with him… I went through the motions of getting my cabin ready for the day. Maybe I was a little more snappish than usual. 

After breakfast, Percy normally went to the Athena cabin to be taught Ancient Greek, but I stopped him before he even left the dining pavilion. “I want to give you more training,” I told him. 

“Annabeth -” 

“Will be fine without you,” I said, antsy. The urge to run was building within me. Years of choosing flight over fight. “She’s only reminding you of what you already know. You’ll be fine without Ancient Greek for a few days but you _need_ to know how to defend yourself.” 

Percy studied my face. Slowly he nodded. “Okay, Luke.” 

“Great. Let’s go for a run.” 

Surprise crossed Percy’s face but he ran after me. We sprinted down the hill the dining pavilion sat on and followed the path back to the cabins. 

Once we weren’t running downhill, I had to slow down so that he could keep up. Even so, I could tell that I was pushing him. We ran through the cabins, past the pegasus stables and the forge. I didn’t pause as we ran past the arena and to the creek. Instead of taking the footbridge, I leapt over it. I spun on my heels to see Percy do the same, then took off for the strawberry fields. 

Running the circumference of the entire camp was two miles. Percy panted behind me, every breath rough and dry. He stumbled a few times but always picked himself back up. 

I was wishing I’d trained him harder but it was only a week. How could I train Percy to be a warrior in a week? We went behind the Big House, running along the hill that held Thalia’s pine tree. 

Percy tripped again, yelped when his knee hit a rock. 

I glanced behind me. 

Percy picked himself up, hobbled a few steps, and got back into the groove. His jeans were torn and blood began to trickle down. 

I led Percy past the arts and crafts pavilion, the amphitheater, and the climbing wall. Finally, we stopped at the base of the dining pavilion hill. 

Percy’s shirt was damp with sweat. He blinked up at me, doubled over, hands on his knees. “Can...can we take a...a break?” 

“Five minutes,” I relented reluctantly. As soon as Percy’s five minutes of rest, I began the walk to the arena. 

Percy groaned and walked after me. 

As we made our way through the cabin courtyard, everyone gave us a wide berth. Or rather, they gave Percy a wide berth. 

Percy looked miserable, and I didn’t think it had to do with the two mile run. 

At the training arena, I began to put Percy through his paces. The moves started off easy, but he needed to know so much. How much could I cram into his head before he was sent on his quest? 

When Percy began slowing down, taking hits he should have dodged, I filled a cup with water and dumped it on his head. “Again,” I said. 

Percy looked up at me, annoyance and sorrow in his sea glass green eyes. But he fought, did everything I told him to exactly as I showed him. Every time he got tired, we poured more water onto him and Percy kept going. 

We missed lunch. 

By the time the sun began to set, we were both drenched in sweat and trembling. My hands cramped. My legs felt like jello. The places Percy managed to hit me ached and a cut on my arm stung. 

Percy’s stomach growled like a monster. He was practically crosseyed with exhaustion. His skin was mottled by bruises and I knew there were more beneath his clothes. I’d managed not to cut him, but I didn’t blunt any of my blows. “Luke, I...I’m going to fall over dead if we keep going…” 

If I wasn’t so tired, I might have laughed. “We’re done...for today.” 

Percy eyed me, not liking the sound of that. “Why are we doing this?” 

“They’re going to send you on a quest soon,” I said. “I want you to be ready.” 

Percy pushed his black hair from his eyes. It was so wet with sweat that it stuck up. There was a bruise on his forehead. “You’re hiding something from me.” 

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” I admitted. 

“And you do,” Percy challenged. 

I nodded. I was so thirsty. The water cooler was empty. 

“So are you going to tell me or are you like everyone else?” Percy asked, lifting his chin. He didn’t look less exhausted, but he did look ready for another fight. Where was he getting the energy to demand answers from me? 

I gestured for Percy to follow me to the Big House. It was the only place to get water. While we walked, I considered the merits of telling Percy versus keeping him the dark. Wouldn’t it be better for him to be on our side? But the prophecy… 

By the time we got water and then refilled our glasses with lemonade, I’d decided that it was better to have Percy on our side. He needed all the preparation he could get for what was to come. It would be better than going in blind. We took our lemonade and hiked up to Thalia’s pine tree. 

Percy flopped down into the grass, almost spilling his drink. His stomach still growled. I’d have to steal him - and me - some food because we were going to miss dinner too. “Luke, how much danger am I in?” 

I sighed as I sat down beside him. “There’s a prophecy.” I recited the Great Prophecy to him. Two years ago while I was still healing from the encounter with Ladon, I’d wandered the Big House from top to bottom. Unlike most campers, the Oracle didn’t bother me. And I had Kronos in my dreams telling me that my fate was on a slip of paper in the Big House attic. “There’s no guarantee that the prophecy is about you, but there’s a good chance that it is,” I finished. 

Percy lay with an arm over his eyes. He might have been asleep except for the grimace on his face. “So...I’m going to die before I’m sixteen?” 

“We don’t know that,” I cautioned. “Prophecies don’t always come true how you think they will.” 

“Does everyone know about the prophecy?” 

“Chiron does. Annabeth probably knows all of it. But I don’t think anyone else does. It’s kind of a secret.” 

Percy laughed, but it kind of sounded like a sob. He swallowed. “Why bother training me if I’m going to die?” 

I laid my hand on Percy’s forearm. His skin was bruised and tacky with dried sweat. “We’re going to make sure you don’t die.”  
  
  
  


The next morning, Percy didn’t want to get out of bed. “Everything hurts. Just let me die,” he groaned. 

I was torn between rolling my eyes, sympathy, and impatience. We didn’t have time for him to be sore. But if I pushed him too hard without giving him breaks, then it would ruin his muscles and he’d be worse than useless on his upcoming quest. Another thing that nectar and ambrosia didn’t heal were sore muscles. If Percy was aching after our training yesterday, I’d need to use traditional methods to get him back to a place that wouldn’t ruin him. So I left, jogging to the Big House to get something that would make him feel well enough to continue. 

Silena caught me on the way there, jogging to keep up with my longer stride. “How is he?” 

I almost said _completely fucked_ but managed to bite my tongue before the words left my mouth. Silena wasn’t one of the Aphrodite kids with charmspeak but she was still very compelling. “Sore. I ran him too hard yesterday.” 

Silena’s eyes were every shade of brown imaginable, constantly shifting like a kaleidoscope. She gazed up at me with a frown. “Everyone noticed. Why are you running him so hard?” 

“The master has plans for him,” I said without elaborating. 

Silena’s brow furrowed. She glanced around to make sure we weren’t being overheard. In a low voice she asked, “What kind of plans, Luke?” 

It felt like the air was being squeezed out of my lungs. “Big plans.” We were almost to the Big House. “Soon. He isn’t ready.” I went into the Big House, leaving Silena on the steps. The other kids didn’t go into the Big House uninvited but I had special privileges. I gathered my supplies, keeping an out for Chiron and Dionysus, then made the walk back to cabin three. Silena was not outside when I left the Big House. 

Percy was still in bed, covers drawn up to his head. He was awake, staring at the opposite bunk. His eyes flicked toward me when I entered. “What are those?” Percy sat up, hissing, and leaned against the wall. He’d fallen asleep in his day clothes. 

“Compressions. Hot and cold packs. Tylenol.” I opened the compressions and began to bind his muscles. They were swollen. Silently, I cursed myself. I should have known better, should have given him more breaks and not waited to take care of him. We ate last night but it was after dark and we’d skipped two meals to train. Percy needed more calories. 

Percy picked up the Tylenol bottle. 

“Can you take that dry or do you need a drink?” I asked as I moved to his other arm. 

Percy opened the bottle and took two of them dry. That was more than he should have been taking at once considering that he was only twelve but I didn’t say anything. We couldn’t afford to skip a day so that he could rest and get back to one hundred percent. “My back hurts.” 

I nodded. “Do you want heat or cold?” 

Percy considered. “Heat.” 

“Okay.” I activated one of the hot packs and slid it between Percy’s back and the wall. “How are your legs?” 

“Like jello, even though I’m sitting. I don’t think they’ll ever carry me again,” Percy said, trying to smile but mostly grimacing. He adjusted the hot pack and sighed, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. 

I grabbed a pillow, lifted Percy’s legs, and stuck the pillow beneath them. “Elevation,” I explained. The empty cup I’d brought from the Big House, I now picked up and said, “Cool blue Gatorade.” Pale blue liquid filled the cup. I handed it to Percy. 

Percy took it, sipped the Gatorade. The look on his face was intense as he studied me. “You’ve been paying attention at dinner.” 

I flashed him a smile. Percy’s drink of choice was blue cherry coke and the color was what I would call violent cobalt. It was very noticeable. From my pockets, I pulled out _Iris’ Organic Protein Bars._ “Eat this.” 

Percy opened one, took a bite, and made a face. He washed it down with a lot of Gatorade. “This tastes terrible.” 

I smiled. “Don’t let Iris hear you say that.” I gave Percy an hour more of rest with the heat and elevation. Then we went through some light stretches to help with circulation. All the while, I was berating myself. We were demigods and tougher than normal mortals but we could still be hurt by over exertion. I was so stupid. After our stretches, we went to the dining pavilion for breakfast. 

We had to eat at separate tables, which was annoying. I sat so that I could see when Percy was done eating. 

Percy sat by himself, looking small and alone. He seemed to be realizing exactly what it meant to be claimed as Poseidon’s son. More than once, Percy caught my eye and looked away quickly. 

Chris nudged me. “Is he one of us?” 

I knew what he was asking. Chris was one of the many demigods I’d convinced to join Kronos’ side. Most of cabin eleven were against the Olympians...with the notable exception of the Stoll brothers. He was the same age as Travis, but taller and broader, with darker skin and thicker hair. “He’s important,” I said vaguely. Time would tell whether Percy would join Kronos’ army. I hoped he would and yet...and yet the idea scared me.  
  
  
  


At dawn on the third day of intensive training, Silena walked by the Hermes table and dropped a jar into my lap. She caught my eye, flicked her gaze to Percy, and kept walking to the Aphrodite table. Later, while setting Percy up to train with the dummies, I took the jar out of my pocket and studied the hand-printed label. It was a cream to heal muscles, blessed by the Apollo cabin. Silena had signed her name with a heart. 

I had something similar for my own aches and pains, but as much as I liked Percy, I couldn’t make myself share it. It was too precious to me. But this was good. If he put it on after his shower but before bed, then it would have all night to heal him. After training, I ripped off the label and handed Percy the jar. “If you need help with your back, just let me know.” 

“Thanks, Luke.”  
  
  
  


On the fourth day, Grover beat me to cabin three. He woke Percy and they walked to the Big House together. As Percy passed me, he flashed me a worried look. This was it. We could both feel it. 

I ran back into my cabin and opened a compartment in the wall beside my bunk. It was my actual secret hiding spot, not the one under the floorboards that everyone knew about where I kept my Coca-Cola. The gray converse sneakers were inside exactly where I’d put them two years ago. Looking at them made my chest ache for more reason than one. I clutched the sneakers and ran to find Alabaster. 

Alabaster Torrington was the only son of Hecate I knew of. Since she was a minor Titaness and didn’t have a throne on Olympus, he was a member of cabin eleven despite being claimed. Alabaster was in the arts and crafts pavilion, working on something that involved creativity and magic. 

It was rude of me, but I dumped the sneakers onto the table in front of him. “I need you to charm these,” I said. My heart pounded. My hands felt cold. Every instinct in my body said that this was wrong and I shouldn't be doing this. Percy deserved better than this. There were other ways to make up for my mistake back on the winter solstice. 

Alabaster frowned down at the shoes, then looked up at me. “To do what?” 

To my horror and surprise, I felt tears prickling behind my eyes. They didn’t fall, but the fact that they were there at all...I haven’t cried for two years. In a very low tone of voice, my face only inches from his, I told Alabaster exactly what the shoes had to do. 

Alabaster gazed up at me, concern on his face as he studied me. Finally, he nodded slowly. “I think I can do that.” He glanced at the sun still making an arch toward the high point of the sky. “It would have been better if you’d asked me to do this before the sun rose but…” 

I couldn’t repeat the words that Alabaster said, couldn’t mimic the hand gestures, or tell you a gods-damned thing about how Alabaster charmed the shoes. It was like my vision blacked out, like my whole body blacked out. It only lasted a few seconds, and then I was back. I’d never left. 

Alabaster pushed the shoes toward me. “It...it took longer than I thought it would.” He was pale and sweating. “You’d better go give those to _him_ before he leaves for his quest.” 

I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you for something that felt like a curse. I’d called it a charm but I wasn’t stupid. Alabaster had cursed the shoes. I was sure that, young as he was, Alabaster knew it too. I hated dragging another kid into something so vile but I couldn’t do magic. Not really. Not like this. 

Percy and whoever he was bringing weren’t at the Big House. I spotted them on the hill, about ready to leave. I sprinted up the hill, lungs burning, hands cold as ice from the panic that coursed through my veins. A voice in my head shouted for me to stop, that there was another way, I was going too far, Percy didn’t deserve to be dragged into Tartarus no matter how much we could have used him on our side. But it was drowned out by another voice telling me that if I had to endure one more night of those gods-awful nightmares, I was going to kill myself. “Hey!” I said, panting. “Glad I caught you.” 

Annabeth blushed, the way she always did when I was around. She had a backpack on her shoulders, ready to go on her first quest with the chosen one. She’s been waiting so long for this. And I was going to ruin it. What if she got hurt? Maybe I shouldn’t do this. Don’t do this. 

“Just wanted to say good luck,” I told Percy. The shoes felt heavy in my hands. “And I thought...um, maybe you could use these.” I handed him the sneakers. 

Percy tilted his head, confused. 

_“Maia!”_

White bird’s wings sprouted out of the heels. It startled Percy so much that he dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground like dying birds until the wings folded up and disappeared. 

“Awesome!” Grover said. He was not good at reading omens. 

I smiled for Percy’s sake. “Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from...dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days…” I hadn’t put them on since coming back from my quest. By the end of my quest, they’d been drenched in my blood. But Chiron had cleaned them for me, until they looked like new. I still couldn’t stand to put them back on. If I never flew again, then so be it. 

Percy blushed, brown face taking on a deep red tint. “Thanks, Luke,” he said. 

I wanted to scream at him not to thank me. That this was a trap and he would almost certainly die in Tartarus. “Listen, Percy…” His eyes were on me then, sparkling up at me like the sunlight reflects off the surface of a lake. “A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just...kill some monsters for me, okay?” 

Percy held out his hand. 

I grasped his wrist, dismayed at how tiny he was. I was sending this kid to his death. Nausea bubbled inside of me. 

Percy clasped my wrist too. He squeezed, then let go. 

I patted Grover’s head between his horns. Then I gave Annabeth a good-bye hug. I held her tight, afraid to let her go off on a quest that might change her for the worse. If she came back at all. 

Annabeth hugged me back, panting so hard she was practically hyperventilating. It had been a long time since I last hugged her for precisely this reason. Her reactions to me did not help the nausea go away. 

I broke away, ran back down the hill. I only made it to the Big House, out of sight around a corner, before I dropped to my knees and threw up in the grass. 

Gods, what did I just do?

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to know what the hellhounds sound like in Percy's dream, it's [the mutant bear from the 2018 movie Annihilation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg0bvyIEHcs&feature=youtu.be). Warning for disturbing animal mutation and gore.


End file.
